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THEOSOPHY 
THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 




KATHERINE TINGLEY 



®fje $atf) of tfje jfflj^ttc 



Links for Your Own Forging 

from the 
Lectures and Writings of 

Hatfjerme {Rnglep 

Leader and Official Head of the Theosophical Movement through- 
out the world; Successor to Helena Petrovna Blavatsky and 
William Quan Judge; Foundress of the Raj a- Yoga System of 
Education; Foundress-President of the School of Antiquity, 
Raj a- Yoga College, and Theosophical University 

Compiled by 

Grace Knoche 

Student of Katherine Ting ley 



Published by the 

Woman's International Theosophical League 
Point Loma, California 







The Aryan Theosophical Press 
Point Loma, California 



Copyright by Katherine Tingley, 1922 



LC Control Number 




tmp96 027347 



) 



"©uv butp te to keep altbe m man 
f)fe Spiritual intuitions;/' 

— Helena Petrovna Blavatsky 



INVOCATION 

OMY Divinity! thou dost blend with the 
earth and fashion for thyself Temples 
of mighty power. 

my Divinity! thou livest in the heart-life 
of all things and dost radiate a Golden Light 
that shineth forever and doth illumine even the 
darkest corners of the earth. 

my Divinity! blend thou with me that 
from the corruptible I may become Incor- 
ruptible; that from imperfection I may be- 
come Perfection; that from darkness I may 
go forth in Light. 

- — Katherine Tingley 



PREFACE 

HHHE citations which follow have been gathered 
■*- from various sources and cover a period of 
years. A few have been taken from private letters, 
many from instructions given in Theosophical classes 
or intimate group-talks, and still others from pub- 
lished but now inaccessible reports of lectures de- 
livered by the Theosophical Leader in America and 
abroad. By permission some passages from private 
instructions are included. 

These are what the title-page indicates, 'links 
for your own forging,' their office not to do your 
thinking for you but to stimulate unawakened powers 
and impel you to think for yourself. They are for 
the seeker, the inquirer, the mystic, who for more 
definite study is referred to the already abundant 
Theosophical literature, particularly The Key to Theo- 
sophy by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, the Founder 
of the Theosophical Society and its first Leader, 
to the Theosophical Manuals — little books written 
by students of Katherine Tingley and under her 
supervision — and for advanced study to Madame 
Blavatsky's masterworks, The Secret Doctrine and 
I sis Unveiled. 

Optimism, service, common sense, action rather 
than talk, the magic of self-directed evolution, love 



as the great unfolding power in life, and the abiding 
consciousness of Divinity pouring through all and 
over all and in all, "like water over the pebbles of 
Willow Brook" — these are the keynotes of Theo- 
sophy and are accentuated here. They are needed 
notes, admittedly, in any attempt to harmonize or 
resolve the jangled progressions of modern life; and 
at the educational institution founded by her at 
Point Loma, California, Madame Tingley has made 
this attempt and has crowned it with a success that 
is attracting the attention of the world. Her writings 
therefore may justly claim consideration. 

Those who see in life only a riddle, who see in- 
justice on every hand, who cannot find peace of mind 
without some satisfying answer to the ancient ques- 
tions, Who am I, Whence came I, and Whither do I go, 
who have touched the great problem of sorrow and 
would gladly make their lives count in service to their 
fellows if only they could find the way — such as 
these it is believed will find much to inspire and help 
them in the appeal made in this little volume. For 
it is entirely to the nobler qualities and the indwel- 
ling soul in man. 

The Compiler 

Internationa/ Theosophical Headquarters 
Point Loma, California 
February, 1922. 



CONTENTS 

Section I 
What is Theosophy? 

The Wisdom-Religion of the Ages 3 

The Mission of Theosophy 8 

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky 13 

Section II 

The Great Discovery: Man is not One, 
but Two 

The Duality of Man's Nature 19 

Man's Two Companions 23 

Reconstruction and Duty 26 

Self-Study and Self-Control 30 

The Higher and Lower Psychology 35 

Section III 

The Path of the Mystic 

The Light of the Divine 43 

The Open Doors of Silence 50 

Nature, the Mystic Mother 58 



Section IV 

Teacher and Student 

The Beaming Thought 65 

Your Spiritual Strength : . . . . 70 

Section V 

The Heart-cry of the World 

The Vortex of Human Life 87 

The Day of Achievement is Here 94 

Foreshadowings 99 

The Cry of the Nations for Peace 103 

To My Brother in Prison 107 

Keynotes and Epigrams 116 

Section VI 

Woman and the Theosophic Home 

To the Awakening Woman 123 

Build Spiritual Altars in the Home 138 

Child and Mother 150 

Section VII 

Raja- Yoga Ideals and the Child 

The Cycle of the Children 159 

Education and the Heart-Life of the Child 167 

Music is the Song of the Soul 175 

True Drama, the Soul's Interpreter 180 

'The Little Philosophers' 184 



SECTION I 



Wijat te Sfceosiopijp? 



Theosophy- is, then, the archaic Wisdom- 
Religion, the esoteric doctrine once known in 
every ancient country having claims to civiliza- 
tion. . . . Our society is also called the 
* Universal Brotherhood of Humanity.' 

— Helena Petrovna Blavatsky 



The Wisdom-Religion of the Ages 

HE in whom the soul is ever manifest — he is the 
true mystic, and to him Theosophy is no 
system of sterile thought but a light, a teacher, 
a companion, ever calling to compassionate action, 
ever urging to higher things. 



Think of Theosophy not so much as a body of 
philosophic or other teaching, but as the highest law 
of conduct, which is the enacted expression of divine 
love or compassion. 

Theosophy will bring something to you that can 
never pass away: the consciousness of your Divine, 
your Inner Self; a conviction of your inherent power 
to conserve your energy along the highest spiritual 
lines. For man cannot find his true place in the 
great scheme of human life until he has ennobled 
and enriched his nature with the consciousness of 
his Divinity. That is what Theosophy means; that 
is its message; and it is a beautiful one to those 
who can throw aside fear and prejudice and truly 
interpret its meaning. 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

With all due respect to our great colleges and 
their work, with all due deference to the eminent men 
of learning at their head, I nevertheless declare that 
were a Chair of Theosophy to be founded in these 
institutions throughout America, the whole world 
would soon be on its way towards that true, that 
spiritual civilization which is our ideal and our right. 

For a new religion has come — new in its presen- 
tation, but old as the ages in its meaning: Theosophy, 
once the universal religion of mankind, and destined 
to be the universal religion of the future. Even now 
its great principles are permeating thought and ac- 
tion everywhere, and everywhere the most advanced 
minds are looking forward to the ideal of a universal 
religion as humanity's one hope. Here it is! 



Theosophy is the basis, Divinity is the power, 
mind is the instrument, and the soul is the en- 
lightener. 

No philosophy in the world can meet the great 
human 'question and answer' as does Theosophy. 
This I know, for it includes the best in all others. 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

It is the essence of all, as it is the essence of all 
religions. It satisfies the intellect; it is logical, 
scientific and clear; and it steals into the heart with 
its message of brotherliness and compassion like the 
aroma of a flower, like the tender breath of a mother's 
love. What but Theosophy can meet the great need 
of the hour? 

Theosophy does not offer spiritual instruction for 
money. Truth is not purchasable. 



Those who long to serve humanity should study 
Theosophy, if for nothing else than that they may 
learn to 'know themselves'; that they may learn to 
know their children spiritually; that they may per- 
ceive the duality that exists in human nature as well 
as in life, thus becoming able to control the dis- 
ruptive and lower elements, and encourage those 
which are noble, constructive and divine. . . . For 
the despair and unrest of humanity, the unbalance 
and the injustices of life, stand at the door of 
our civilization, like living pictures, specters, their 
very presence pleading for a manifestation of the 
Higher Law. 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 



But the one who essays to study Theosophy must 
do his part. He cannot be fed with a spoon. There 
must be effort and humility, aspiration and love of 
virtue, and a willingness to be taught. 



No teacher, however great, can teach until the 
pupil is ready to learn; and Theosophy is the world's 
teacher, for it is the great interpreter of life. 



Were you to be told that just outside the door 
great minds were waiting to give you the secret of 
acquiring fabulous wealth, you would not stop for 
anything. . . . Yet that which you would hope to 
gain belongs but to the perishable, fleeting, material 
side of life! Why not make as great an effort for the 
knowledge that will give you the secret of right 
living, reveal to you the mysteries of life ? 



There is in Theosophy an optimism so magical, 
so inspiring, and so superb that I would I had the 
power to challenge the world with its sublime ideas. 
Had we the light of this inspiring, pulsating philo- 
sophy upon the affairs of our nations today, we 
should find an inner and higher expression of Brother- 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

hood. The force of it would touch and quicken the 
most indifferent minds; it would bring the breath of 
life to those who, weighed down by their Karma, are 
now but just half living — yes, men and nations 
both. It is this above all that the world needs. 



The oft-quoted saying of the Sage of Athens, 
"Man, know thyself!" has a deeper meaning today 
than it had yesterday, for a greater demand is made 
today upon the whole human race. 



The teachings of Theosophy alone can bring hope 
to poor, storm-tossed humanity; this I affirm, and 
we have but to observe the general trend of human 
thought and effort to establish this as a fact. Anti- 
quated theories of religion and life are being dis- 
credited, long settled beliefs and customs are being 
abandoned, and there has risen in the world a great 
compelling force which is demonstrating the poverty 
of man's religious life. 

Materialism and the merely intellectual view have 
carried man out upon a sea of unrest and dissatisfac- 
tion, while the real man, the Divine Man, has been 
ignored. As a result, the finer knowledge — which is 
right at hand if we could but perceive it, for it lies in 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

the very being of man himself — is inactive and ob- 
scured, so that it is difficult even for thinking men 
and women to find their moorings. It is this very con- 
dition, however, that will finally open man's eyes to 
the power and beneficence of Theosophy, and to the 
fact that it holds the key to knowledge which he seeks. 

Theosophy is the inner life in every religion. 
It is no new religion, but is as old as Truth itself. 



Theosophy! Theosophy! It is the great beacon- 
light! It stands in its colossal strength and its won- 
derful potentialities as the good angel of the twen- 
tieth century. Let all turn to its teachings and 
find the Lost Word! 



The Mission of Theosophy 

The mission of the Theosophical Society is to bring 
men and women together as co-workers for a great 
and universal purpose; and the first step towards that 
end is to accentuate the fact that man is divine^ and 
that to help create a nucleus of Universal Brother- 
hood, based on the Divinity of Man and the Immor- 
tality of the Soul, is the duty of every human being. 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

The mission of the Theosophical Society is to set 
aside errors, misconceptions, unbrotherliness and in- 
tolerance, and put love and trust, right action and 
the sweetness of truth, in their place. Its mission is 
to spread new ideas throughout the world for the 
benefit of those who most need them; to release the 
mind of man from prejudice and from fear, and 
human life from its digressions. Its mission is to 
bring the whole human family up to a standard of 
spiritual foresight, discrimination, intuition, right 
thought and right action, with a new and diviner 
conception of justice and of love. If men and 
women could work together as one great universal 
body towards this end, they would be creators of a 
new order of ages, a Universal Religion verily, and 
a true Brotherhood of Man. 



For we are all brothers: children of Deity, mem- 
bers of God's great family. The mighty must reach 
downward towards the lowly; the lowly must be 
borne upwards. 

My whole aim is to bring out the spiritual possi- 
bilities of the individual. . . . Individual effort 
towards higher things ! That is what I aim to inspire; 

9 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

that is the aim of Theosophy — that each may 
come to know himself better, that there may be 
a spiritual 'roundi rig-out' of the character and the 
life. If we can see the individual rising in the 
strength of his divine heritage, the power of his 
spiritual rights, then comes a clearing of the mind, 
a lifting of the veil that hides the Truth. 



As Madame Blavatsky said, "Theosophist is 
who Theosophy does"; and Theosophy teaches, 
first and last, purity of life, protection of the inno- 
cent, pure thoughts, pure words, pure deeds. Above 
all, it teaches that each has a responsibility for all 
who are weaker or less progressed; it teaches that 
each is "his brother's keeper." 



Yet we never proselytize. We make no at- 
tempt to 'convert'; for our philosophy declares 
that any attempt to force others to accept our 
thought or our views is an injustice to their true 
nature, their deeper self. We do not frighten, in- 
timidate or discourage, nor do we implant fear. 
But we do appeal, we do plead, and we do try by 
the example of our lives to show to others the 
beauty of Theosophy as a living power. 

10 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 



A new hope, a new courage, is even now stirring 
the hearts of thousands. A message of Love and 
Brotherhood has gone out to the world. This is the 
keynote of the new age — Brotherhood. 



The principles of Theosophy are worthless unless 
carried out in deeds. It is useless to pile up in the 
library of our intellectual life ideas upon ideas — 
and nothing more. The world is weighed down with 
mere intellectualism already. It must have some- 
thing more, and that 'something more' is the active, 
practical expression of those ideas, those spiritual 
principles, in every act of life. 

Part of the mission of Theosophy is to show man 
how to reason in a new way. Its teachings challenge 
one to seek a new viewpoint; they challenge one to 
rise in the strength of the soul to heights of self- 
mastery never attained before. But not for self: 
in this time of agony and chaos there can be no 
thought of self. 

In such endeavor the student finds the sacredness 
of the hour and the day. There is no time for com- 
promise or for delay. The lazy, the indifferent, the 

11 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

selfish and the egotistical will not be interested along 
such lines of research; but one who is stirred by the 
simple conviction that he is immortal — not in some 
nebulous future life, but here and now — that man 
feels the touch of the Divinity within. 



Theosophy is above all the power to uplift. If 
mankind but understood and lived it, the whole hu- 
man race would be freed, a solid foundation of mental 
and spiritual freedom would be established and pres- 
ent menacing and terrible conditions would disap- 
pear. So great would be the joy of life under Theo- 
sophy, applied and lived, that those partaking of its 
beneficence could efface from their memories even 
the mistakes of the past, and could go forward 
fearlessly and filled with hope. 



Theosophy declares that humanity is divine! 
Were this Divinity but realized, the godlike attri- 
butes of character would be so manifest in dignity 
and in strength that no words would be needed to tell 
you what real life is! . . . We are making some 
progress, it is true; but we hear only six notes played. 
The seventh one is silent, and that silent, waiting 
note is the Divine in human nature and in life. 

12 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 



Theosophy teaches that man weaves his own 
destiny and that he is, to the extent of his knowledge 
and his will, the master of it. 



"Man, know thyself!" This teaching Theo- 
sophy would engrave on every human life. 



Helena Petrovna Blavatsky 

I never think of the teachings of Theosophy 
without feeling surge up within me an intense, an 
affectionate, an infinite regard for the wonderful 
woman who brought them to the Western world — 
teachings far older than those of the Nazarene, and 
yet with all the beauty, charm and purity of new 
life. This unusual woman, Helena Petrovna Bla- 
vatsky! I feel that she must have passed through 
many schools of experience in many, many lives 
to gain the marvelous knowledge that she pos- 
sessed, the affectionate self-sacrificing love for hu- 
manity that was hers, and the courage that sufficed 
to carry her through the suffering and persecu- 
tion that came. She was as one who had been 
cleansed as by fire, who had passed through the 
travail of the soul. 

13 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

If she became a mystery to those who did not care 
to understand her, a mystery to the world in general, 
it was because the majority of people are not looking 
towards the East. They may have moods of un- 
selfishness now and then, and spasms of aspiration, 
but in the main they are, so to speak, c here today 
and gone tomorrow/ 

J> 

When Madame Blavatsky came to the world 
with her message of Theosophy, she perceived the 
materialistic trend of human thought and life, and 
brought her treasures of Truth that she might turn 
it to higher things. She came to simplify the prob- 
lems of life. Her purpose was to set men thinking. 
Read The Secret Doctrine, Isis Unveiled, The Key to 
Theosophy, and The Voice of the Silence — you who 
are questioning as to the 'whence,' the 'wherefore' 
and the 'whither' — and see if you do not find in 
them principles and truths that, could they be 
lived up to, would absolutely change the whole 
aspect of our civilization. She was indeed 'Hu- 
manity's Friend.' 

How was it possible for this Teacher to find her 
way into the heart-life of the world as she did, 
and leave on the screen of time that indescribable 

14 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

something that has never yet been uttered? For 
Theosophy has not been fully uttered, and we can 
perceive as yet but one or two aspects of it — and 
these according to our advancement. In her life 
she expressed the unutterable, the mystical, the truly 
unexpressed. She dwelt in the soul-life and under 
the impress of the silence. She brought to the world 
lofty and colossal principles, whose meaning our 
children as the years pass will interpret better than 
we. She lifted the veil before the mysteries of life 
and destiny when she stepped forth on the outer 
plane with this magnificent and dignified philosophy. 
I salute her, wherever she is ! 



H. P. Blavatsky has been libeled and obscured, 
as all spiritual reformers have been; but thousands 
who know her teachings and her life hail her as one of 
the benefactors of the age. We already find the 
ideals of Theosophy permeating every department of 
thought, and I prophesy that it will not be a hundred 
years before Theosophy will be planted in every city 
of the civilized world — because she lived and sacri- 
ficed and taught. Oh, the superb things that then 
will come to human life ! The very thought of it is a 
benediction. She is indeed the spiritual mother 
of the world. 

15 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

Humanity is truly in the shadows; but in spite 
of retrogression, materialism and a selfishness that 
is extreme, the finer atmosphere of the world is 
even now surcharged with hope. Can we take the 
light and sunshine of this hope into our lives and 
forget the one to whose courage and sublime effort 
we owe all this — H. P. Blavatsky ? No Theo- 
sophist could do so. 

jt 

She left the world in its thought-life teeming 
with an urge for higher things, which only the few 
could understand. She was inspired beyond the 
knowing, and the great message which she brought, 
the mighty undertones and overtones of Universal 
Love, sounded by her in the silences, were part of 
the great Universal Plan. She was the Messenger 
of years to come, the Torch-bearer of the age, the 
great transmitter of spiritual light to the future. 

She had traveled far on the 'small old path' of self- 
mastery — a great Spiritual Warrior, with the love 
of a mother burning in her heart and the sweetness 
and trust of a child. She stands as one transfigured, 
for upon her shines the sunrise light of the New Day 
she proclaimed. 

16 



SECTION II 



iHan te not ®nt, but fEtoo 



/j not one part of us body, and the 
rest of us soul? 

— Plato 



The Duality of Man's Nature 

THERE is a great discovery which each must 
make for himself: that human nature is dual 
and that a battle is ever going on between 
the Higher Self and the lower, the angel and the 
demon in man. 

Theosophy teaches the duality of man's nature — 
the higher, immortal part, and the lower, made up 
of passions and desires. When the higher dominates, 
there is knowledge and there is peace. When the 
lower rules, all the dark despairing elements of hu- 
man life rush in upon the unguarded soul, and too 
often suicide is the result. 

I bring the message that man, in his inner nature, 
is a being with a divine inheritance and immeasur- 
able possibilities of evolution. 



This strange duality! And how do human weak- 
nesses creep in ? First of all we turn the key of selfish- 
ness in some closed door of the nature; then, before 
we know it, the door is open and in walks a stranger, 
an obsessive, potent force of evil, often with power 

19 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

enough to destroy the very being. No lens has as yet 
been made that can show you what this is, but it 
nevertheless exists. And the door of selfish desire 
once ajar, the incoming stranger is welcomed, enter- 
tained, permitted to enjoy the bounty of the intel- 
lectual life, permitted to sit in the very chamber of 
man's being, where only higher and splendid things 
should be. 

This door may open to any of us, but know that 
it can never be shut, and kept shut, until our feet 
are planted on the eternal rock of knowledge and of 
trust, until we have the power — and absolutely 
know that we have it — to shut out the faintest 
tinge or touch or thought or vibration of anything 
that would mar the purity of that inner realm of 
mind that the soul works in and through. 

In the name of justice and of Karma I say, 
Woe be unto those who wilfully entertain such visitors 
as these! Woe be unto those who dare to desecrate their 
own mind or touch the mind of another with anything 
but the loftiest, the noblest, the purest and the best! 



Once the duality of human nature is admitted by 
science, our asylums will become great schools of 
study from which a deeper understanding and a 
larger compassion shall come. For without a study 

20 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 



of the Self in its duality, mental disorders cannot 
be understood. A volume could be written on this 
one line alone, and the half not then be told. 



How wonderfully far-seeing was that old teacher 
of bygone days who left us this injunction: Man, 
know thyself! That is the key to the whole 
situation. Let man take the first step boldly in 
honest self-examination, with a daring that stops be- 
fore nothing that may impede his path, and he will 
find very soon that he has the key to wisdom and to 
the power which redeems. Discovered through his 
own efforts, by the law of self-directed evolution, 
this key will open before him the Chambers of 
the Self. 

For when a man has the courage to analyse him- 
self — his purposes, his motives, his very life — when 
he dares to compare the wrong things in his life with 
the right ones, in the spirit of a love for humanity 
sufficient to make him willing to lay down his life for 
it if need be, he will find the secret of living. This is 
what I mean when I say that we are ever being 
challenged — challenged by the better side of our 
natures to stand face to face with ourselves. That is 

21 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

the challenge of Theosophy, which ever pleads with 
man to reach out in recognition to the Divinity 
within. For this Divinity, this Knower, this Spiritu- 
al Companion, is ever pleading to be listened to, ever 
waiting to be recognised, ever ready to help and 
serve that it may bring the whole nature of man to 
its standard of godlike perfection. 



These two forces: the physical dominated by the 
spiritual, the mind illuminated by treasures of truth 
and inspiration from the Higher Self, these two, 
working together, will bring about results that are 
unbelievable. Nor will it take all eternity to bring 
about these things. The very atoms of our body 
can be touched by the fire of divine life and brought 
into harmony with the mind and soul, controlled as 
the master musician controls his instrument, by 
the Higher Self. 

For life is Light and Light is life, and the Christos- 
spirit is in everything in degree. Could we sit at 
the feet of the Law like little children, could we free 
our minds from misconceptions and learn from Na- 
ture and listen to the Christos-voice within, oh, 
what revelations would come to us ! We should then 
be able to say, This is immortal and that is mortal; 

22 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 



this belongs to the animal nature of man, and that to 
the spiritual. The power to do this is the power that 
we need, arousing us from the dead, so to speak, and 
bringing to us light and illumination. 



Man's Two Companions 

From the time that a vow is taken the disciple 
has ever with him two forces: two invisible com- 
panions formed of his own essence, one evil, one 
divine; the secretion or objectivation of the opposite 
poles of his own self-consciousness, they represent his 
good and evil angels, the Augoeides and its counter- 
part, each seeking to absorb his being. One of these 
in the end must prevail over the other, and one or 
the other is strengthened by every act and thought 
of his life. They are his higher and lower poten- 
tialities passing slowly into potency, as the energies 
(both good and evil, note) . . . are awakened. . . . 

{From private instructions) 



Our problem is to transfer more and more of our- 
selves to the real battle-field. That field is one that 
consists of the feelings and thoughts of men; there- 

23 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 



fore, by right feeling and thought is the battle 
maintained. Our strength lies in keeping positive; 
in holding a steady joy in our hearts; in a momentary 
meditation on all floating great ideas till we have 
seized them and made them ours; in a meditation 
with the imagination on the life of humanity in the 
future, and its grandeur; in dwelling on the concep- 
tion of Brotherhood. . . . 

{From private instructions) 



Yet never can we reach that point of spiritual 
discernment until we have found within our own 
hearts something new: a larger sympathy for all 
that lives, and a broader, deeper, grander conception 
of human life and the superb laws that govern it. 



I think each is a focalization to a point of all the 
good and all the evil elements to which we have 
given conscious life in the past. At each moment, as 
we consciously incline toward good or evil, one or the 
other feeds into and fills the mind. And it is obvious 
that the point of connexion with either is that failing 
or virtue to which we are most inclined. However 
small a point, it must, if encouraged, lead to and 

24 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

involve all the rest on that side of the stores of our 
nature and the universe. If this is true, it follows 
that to give our conscious volitional encouragement 
and backing to any fault or any failing, is an im- 
mensely pregnant move downward. 

{From private instructions) 



But if effort be continual, if no failures or falls 
discourage the aspirant and are always followed "by 
as many undaunted struggles upward," he has always 
the help and counsel of the divine 'Daimon,' the 
'Warrior'; and victory, however far away, is certain. 
For this is an unconquerable power, "eternal and 
sure," an actual presence and inspiration, if you will 
but recognise it, having faith and faith and faith. 

{From private instructions) 



Why then, it will be natural to ask, if this 
Warrior, fighting for us, is invincible, do we ever 
fail? It is lack of faith, unwontedness of resort 
to this place of energy, the habit of yielding to 
temptation without pause or thought, the non- 
recognition by meditation of the duality of our 
nature. {From private instructions) 

25 



Reconstruction and Duty 

I am always thinking of reconstruction, but it is 
the great keynote of effort at the present time, for 
it is a time of new things, new light, and very great 
help, if we invoke it. 

The reconstruction of humanity! How shall we 
set about it? The first step, I hold, is to declare to 
man: You are Divine! There is within you soul-life , 
and if you will to bring out that life it will reveal to you 
the truth; it will make clear every step that you take. 
Greatest of all, it will reveal to you your duty. For 
humanity at present is working largely on mistaken 
lines of duty. 

Duty is misunderstood as Justice and Equity are. 
Yet if we could free ourselves from the limitations of 
preconceived ideas — ideas that are literally riveted 
into the mind — we could move out into the free air 
of harmonious thought and action, and would know 
what duty is. The things we believed in yesterday 
we should believe in no longer; the false gods we 
have worshiped in our home-life and the life of the na- 
tion, would vanish in the presence of the New Light. 

26 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

For the Light is only waiting to be perceived. 
You need not go to India, nor wait for the touch of a 
Swami's hand, in order to find that Light. You can 
find it for yourselves, although since all have evolved 
differently, in different environments, under different 
conditions, and up to different points of understand- 
ing, one cannot say when or how. To establish a set 
rule for reformation would therefore be unwise. This 
we do know, however, that with the motive pure 
and the soul ever urging one upward, one moves 
forward naturally on lines of simple duty, and thus 
into the light of the higher nature and of Truth. 



O ye men and women! Sons of the same Uni- 
versal Mother as ourselves! Ye who were born as 
we were born, who must die as we must die, and 
whose souls like ours belong to the Eternal: I call 
upon you to arise from your dreamy state and to see 
within yourselves that a new and brighter day has 
dawned for the human race. 

This need not remain the age of darkness, nor 
need you wait until another age arrives before you 
can work at your best. It is only an age of darkness 
for those who cannot see the Light, for the Light 
itself has never faded and never will. It is yours 
if you will turn to it, live in it; yours today, this 

27 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

hour even, if you will hear what is said with ears 
that understand. 

Arise then, fear nothing, and taking that which 
is your own and all men's, abide with it in peace 
for evermore! 

From an address delivered to a native audience at Bombay, India, 
during the First Theosophical Crusade around the World (1896-7). 



Wisdom comes not from the multiplication of 
spoken or written instructions; what you have is 
enough to last you a thousand years. Wisdom comes 
from the performance of duty, and in the silence^ 
and only the silence expresses it. 

(From private instructions) 



Let us bring into life as an active, potent factor 
that knowledge which is not to be purchased, for it is 
only to be won by the surrender of the lower nature 
— the passionate, the selfish, the lustful nature — to 
the Christos-spirit, the God within. Then let us call 
forth this inner, Divine Self, that it may illuminate 
the mind and bring man to the heights of spiritual 
discernment, to knowledge of the Higher Self and 
realization of the Theosophic life. 

28 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

We shall never possess the courage that right- 
fully belongs to man as part of the Divine Law, until 
we know that we are souls > until we have opened new 
doors of experience in our lives, interpreting life 
according to this Law and the higher knowledge of 
our being. 



When with great effort a man has clarified his 
nature, when he can say, Get thee behind me, Satan! — 
then has he entered the path of self-development. 
Though his lower nature may meet him at every turn 
of the path, never can he fail, says Theosophy, if his 
purpose is pure. The godlike qualities of his higher 
nature are disciplining him, because he has said 
// shall be so. 



Greater than all Christ knew was the divine 
compassion that he felt; and it must have been 
when on the heights, sounding the harmonies of 
the soul in his compassion for humanity, that he 
looked into the future, beheld the divine possi- 
bilities of those who were to come, and said, Greater 
things than these shall ye do. 

29 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

The mentality of man will never be fully de- 
veloped until he has made his own the enlightenment 
that comes from soul-knowledge. And yet each 
holds this rare possession within his heart of hearts. 
It belongs to all men; they have but to claim 
their own. 



Self-Study and Self-Control 

Self-analysis, self-study, self-control! These are 
the divine, protective power, the golden keys to an 
understanding of the Self. Oh that you might 
realize what books of revelation are piled up on the 
shelves of your own lives! 



Study the teachings of Theosophy on this subject 
of duality, and then put your mental house in order! 
Have a spring-cleaning, and fit the brain-mind to 
become the repository of noble and beautiful things, 
with the Warrior — the Spiritual Self which is your- 
self in very truth — standing at the portal! 

I have no time to write a volume on this subject, 
though there should be one in every school and 
home, but under the pressure of the heartache which 
comes to me when I see one who is fitted to serve the 

30 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 



world superbly yet dominated by some weakness or 
obsession that is absolutely foreign to the Real Self, 
I must say a word here, and a word there, as I can. 



Have you meditated on that Higher Self to which 
you aspire? This thought and meditation is the first 
step to an understanding of the real nature of the 
inner and outer man. It clarifies your whole being, 
unloading and separating from you much that you 
have hitherto thought to be yourself, helping you to 
an understanding of the valuelessness of much that 
you have hitherto desired and perhaps thought neces- 
sary to your welfare or peace of mind; separating the 
chaff from the wheat in consciousness, conferring 
added power of insight into human nature, and dis- 
crimination in your dealings with men. . . . 

(From private instructions) 

We are too slow in looking at these grave prob- 
lems of human nature from the practical standpoint, 
too dilatory in our efforts to study them from analo- 
gy. Yet this is just what we must do if we are to go 
forward on the path of self-conquest and real helpful- 
ness to others. We may talk about duality all day; 
but what does it avail if we do not apply our know- 
ledge to the conditions of actual life? 

31 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

It is in the mysterious chambers of the Self, 
within the very atoms of the mind, that the little 
weakness, the little untruthfulness or disobedience, 
the all but unnoticed vice, take root and grow, mark- 
ing the subtle beginnings of an evil that is worse than 
a crawling, venomous reptile ready to spring at your 
throat. This is a vivid picture, but we need it — 
to see things as they are. 

To reconstruct mankind we must arouse more 
faith in the Self. The spiritual failure becomes such 
because he has lost faith in himself. That is always 
the initial step. Then comes loss of faith in his 
friends, then in mankind as a whole, and soon he 
finds himself living in a strange house: the house 
of the lower nature. 

j» 

It is an awful spectacle, the decay of a loyal na- 
ture. So little a bar seems to keep the poor, unhappy 
mind, fluttering through its delusions, from find- 
ing its own place of peace. But even these cases can 
help . . . if we study them and learn from them the 
two keynotes that mark our own duality, one induc- 
ing worry, the hot brain, misery, discordant over- 
tones, self-justification, and again and again self- 

32 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

justification, an eternal harping on that; the other 
peace, love, joy, clear vision, work. . . . 

{From private instructions) 

No one, thoroughly set in a wrong course, can 
ever be brought to a realization of that fact by words 
alone. Why? Because the lower nature is there; 
it is, for the time, master of the situation, master in 
the house of mind, inimical naturally to whatever 
would enable its victim to learn the truth. 



We all know that the inner man is true, eternal, 
strong, pure, compassionate, just. The outer is too 
often weak, wavering, selfish; its energy arises out of 
desire and ambition. Yet it is the instrument which 
the soul, the inner, seeks to perfect in compassion. 
It is in this outer nature, usually physically domi- 
nated, that arises the common feeling of 'I', and it is 
to the blending of this with the real ' I ' that evolu- 
tion tends. {From private instructions) 



Our consciousness is often a strangely self-gullible, 
dual entity. Victories are won first in thought; and 

33 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 



the habit of substituting a good thought or picture 
that arouses compassion or any part of the spiritual 
nature, or a grander idea in any way going beyond the 
limited selfhood, for a selfish or personal or sensual 

one, is easily learned. {From private instructions) 



To touch upon this moot question, so often raised 
by modern psychology — the question of habit: it is 
habit that makes or mars the character; but he who 
knows the dividing-line between self-indulgence and 
self-control, has the key to habit and knows how to 
build aright. 

I find myself thinking the same thing today that 
I did yesterday, holding the same ideal but with each 
day living closer to it, nearer to the warmth and 
glow of the real life. Soon habit is established, 
the habit of aspiration and self-control, the founda- 
tion of character. 

Were this knowledge universal, there would open 
new paths in life. We should have no disharmonies, 
no war ... we should have religion itself — religion 
that would lead us to see the beauties of nature in a 
new way, to study humanity in a new way, and to 
find the virtues of our brothers and cultivate them 
so understandingly and so generously that in time 
all hatred would disappear. 

34 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

It is indeed time to think along these lines, for the 
spirit of hatred has passed so deeply into our natures 
— sucked in, so to speak, as the rain is sucked into 
the earth — that it will take no end of spiritual sun- 
shine, no end of spiritual virility and splendid hope 
to bring us to a higher standard, with its promise of 
ultimate perfection. 



The Higher and Lower Psychology 

The duality of human nature is the great Theo- 
sophical revelation in the realm of psychology. . . . 
Were I to take John Knox's old conception of the 
devil, and were I to intensify its fiendish nature and 
send it out into the world as a living personality, it 
would be harmless in comparison with the force of 
the lower psychology which today is seeking to 
destroy the power of the human mind. 

This is one of the closed doors in human life; and 
I am trying to open it for the benefit of mankind. 



We declare that there is no hell except that which 
abides in man, or which he makes for himself by his 
own thought and deeds; no heaven except that 
which man makes for himself. 

35 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

The more exalted the dominant motive of the 
life, the greater is the soul-expression, the more 
dominant the soul-psychology. The lower the life- 
motive, the stronger becomes the lower self and with 
it the lower psychology, which so far as it manifests in 
human life today, is the damnation of humanity. 

Nor is this peculiar to our age or to our race, for 
these dual conflicting forces are as old as humanity 
itself. How do they manifest? Very simply and in 
many unsuspected ways. For example, have we not 
in our experience met with real sermons in poetry, 
music or art, that lifted us spiritually, above the 
senses to a higher plane? And on the other hand, 
have we not contacted other and evil forces, which 
played in upon our minds, silently, but nevertheless 
shutting away the soul-light? And thus we find the 
play and interplay of the higher and lower psychology 
on all sides, for as the ancient scripture has it — the 
Bhagavad-Gtta, loved by all students of Theosophy — 
"these two, light and darkness, are the world's 
eternal ways." 

And then this question of obsession : there are so 
many theories, so many so-called explanations. But 
our scientists have much to learn about it because 

36 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

there exist in the nature invisible and intricate forces 
which have their connexion with the physical brain, 
and yet can neither be measured nor seen. They 
exist nevertheless, subtle and powerful forces, that 
under the pressure of selfish desire will desecrate the 
loftiest ideals, destroy the highest motives, nullify 
the best of intentions. They beat in upon the 
physical brain with play and interplay, and use it 
to destructive ends. 

J> 

There is something very wonderful about this 
brain-mind of ours; there is even something sacred 
about it because, though it does belong to the physi- 
cal make-up of man, there still shine upon it as upon 
a flower the rays of the Spiritual Sun. But when 
some selfish desire shuts that light away, there seems 
no limit to its capacity to be used on lower, destruc- 
tive lines. Have we not seen this exemplified in 
the recent great world-war? 

On the other hand, there is no limit to the service 
the brain-mind can render on the highest spiritual 
lines, when disciplined and balanced by right educa- 
tion, with the high and immutable principles of a 
true philosophy of life reflected upon its walls. These 
things are the real mysteries, and they are not studied 
as they should be, even by students of Theosophy. 

37 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

So that with all my soul I urge you to look within. 
Even to the man who has lost faith in humanity and 
in himself, even to the pessimist who dares not think 
a week ahead in hope — to such as these I say: 
Look into the chambers of your soul, for truly you 
are a soul. Rediscover the energy and strength of 
your manhood. Take time to think, not in the ordi- 
nary way, but deeply, and the laws that govern life 
will be revealed. 

You cannot touch the laws connected with this 
mighty power, the soul-psychology, without generat- 
ing wonderful forces — forces that the human eye 
cannot see, that the mind cannot comprehend, can- 
not explain . . . but which bring us into touch with 
Nature and with the laws which govern the lower 
kingdoms of life. 

Truly I believe that birds and flowers know us 
better than we know ourselves; and when we are on 
the high plane of mystical knowledge, when our 
hearts are touched with the spiritual forces of Nature 
and of life, we learn to talk with Nature, we learn to 
work with her. 

I never went into the woods but the birds sang 
better while I was there. Not that I gave them the 
power, but that they, in their simplicity, being part 

38 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 



of the great Law, felt the longing of my soul for a 
touch of sweet Nature, and they sang to me. I have 
had some strange experiences in handling flowers; 
they have answered the yearnings of my soul with 
just the answer most needed. The tiniest atoms of 
the earth have voices, and these voices are even a 
part of ourselves. 

And thus in every department of life we can 
demonstrate the psychology of the soul. 



The psychology of the Christos-spirit ever ac- 
companies true manhood and true womanhood. It 
is the masculine and the feminine blended into the 
higher unity. Christ had attained that unity — a 
mystic and interior state — as had other great 
Teachers before him. . . . And the whole human 
family can reach this high point of endeavor if it will 
place itself under the influence of the soul-psychology 
in life. 

Man's only way to win his great hope and to know 
the Truth is to seize hold on himself, assert and 
realize his potentially all-dominating soul-existence. 
Making his mind and memory register beyond all 
future cavil or doubt what he then knows to be true, 

39 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

holding himself at his true dignity, guiding into right 
conduct all the elements of his nature — his body, 
mind, and emotions — he will maintain from that 
moment strength and joy in life. That once done, 
could he but stand in that attitude for a few weeks 
or months, he would have made of his mind a willing 
instrument of service, harnessed it to the chariot of 
the soul, and dissolved away its limitations. 



I am not taking you to a point in space; I am 
delving down into your heart, trying to bring out 
what is best in your nature that you may know the 
Higher Law. Let there be no delay. There is no 
need of preparation in the brain-mind sense. You 
need not memorize catechisms; you have not to 
spend years in studying your Bibles in order to learn 
the great truths of life and destiny. Your heart will 
reveal these to you. Once you have found this 
knowledge and have commenced to apply it to your 
conduct, you can turn to the Book of the Ages and 
interpret it in the light of the Higher Law. You will 
know your Christ as you never have known him 
before. 



40 



SECTION III 



tEfje $atf) of tfje Jflpsttc 



Like as a bird cleaves the eternal ether ^ 
so the mystic advances on a path not ordi- 
narily manifest. 

— William Quan Judge 



The Light of the Divine 

THE mystic is one who lives ever in the conscious- 
ness of his Divinity. He senses intuitively the 
divine life in all things. He sees within the 
outer, which is fleeting and perishable, an Inner 
which is imperishable and eternal. 



He in whom the soul is ever active, ever urging to 
compassionate thought and deed — he is the true 
mystic. 

The path of the mystic is a secret path, in a 
sense, and a silent and wonderful path. Yet it is 
open to all men, and is so simple and so near at hand 
that many who long to tread it yet turn away from 
it, thinking it to be something else. 



If the student will accept the primary truths of 
Theosophy, and will seek to live according to them, 
every page and every line of The Secret Doctrine will 
have its message for him. But mere book study will 
avail little; something more than that is required 
and demanded of the student of Theosophy; the 

43 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

full understanding of the teachings of all Theo- 
sophical works, and pre-eminently of The Secret 
Doctrine, is only possible as the life conforms to those 
teachings. The true doctrine is secret, hidden; not 
by the teacher, but in the very nature of the teaching 
itself, and to gain it, the student must enter by the 
only door which gives entrance [i. e., the living of 
the life]. . . . 

The student who seeks to fashion his life according 
to these teachings, finds himself more than an ephem- 
eral spark of Being; he will come to realize that in 
very truth he is participant in an immortal drama, 
dating back for millions of years and stretching for- 
ward to heights and depths beyond the wildest 
dreams of poetic imagination. Yet he must learn too 
that the goal cannot be gained without effort, and 
that it depends upon himself to take part consciously 
in the glorious future that awaits the human race, 
and that conscious co-operation in the uplifting of 
the race is essential. 

Success does not come without effort, without 
long and often repeated effort, but the intensity and 
imposed necessity of the struggle, your very desire to 
make the effort, show that there is already a 'living 
power' within your heart that demands and will 

44 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

reward beyond all conception your strong and un- 
faltering service. " Progress," said H. P. B. "is 
made step by step, and each step gained by heroic 
effort. Conquered passions, like slain tigers, can 
no longer turn and rend you. Be hopeful, then, not 
despairing. With each morning's awakening try to 
live through the day in harmony with the Higher 
Self. 'Try' is the battle-cry, taught by the Teachers 
to each pupil. Naught else is expected of you. One 
who does his best does all that can be asked. ..." 

(From private instructions) 



The difficulty has been and is, that in making his 
choice between duty and desire, the disciple has ever 
two roads before him. He can follow after the vanity 
of vanities, or seek the mystery of mysteries. 



The wrong way is Twzj-called the 'easy way.' 
In reality it is the hard way. The path of self- 
conquest, if only we travel as we can and as we 
should — that is the 'easy way.' 



There are many ways by which one can follow 
the 'easy road,' so-called, for temptations are every- 

45 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

where. But he who is willing to follow the road that 
leads to the Light, the road that enables man, con- 
scious of his Divinity, to think correctly, to live in 
the Light, and to follow his ideals regardless of the 
opinions of men — he is one in ten millions, one 
in ten millions. . . . 

New opportunities are before us, new demands 
are being made, for it is a new time, a new time. 
Open the doors of your nature, then, and admit the 
waiting powers that are outside. The Spirit of Love 
is knocking, and opportunities are before you that 
are undreamed of in their scope. 



Once we attune our minds to the great principles 
of brotherhood and service, our hearts open, our 
minds clear, and the new light that we long for 
will break. 

If those who sometimes find themselves in a sea 
of questionings and confusion, would just fall back 
upon the resources of the soul, what strength and 
peace would come! The soul is a stranger to us, 
in a sense, and yet it is absolutely resourceful, 

46 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 



and when we move out in thought and effort based 
on pure and high motives, it has always the means 
at hand to serve us. 



A new energy is being liberated from the center 
of life. This stream of force, for such it is, is felt at 
first as a mighty Niagara, rushing forward with such 
rapidity that it threatens to engulf everything; but 
as it approaches a climax it spreads out in every 
direction; its currents circulate over the whole earth, 
and its influence pervades all things. Nothing can 
rest still; all things are pushed forward by that great 
solar energy now being set free. Care should be 
taken that it is not misdirected, and all personal 
barriers should be removed before they are ground 
to powder. This force acts everywhere; the gods 
are its ministrants. There is no need to retire to the 
woods for the inspiration which it gives, for where 
the needs of humanity are greatest the presence of 
the Helpers can be felt most. 



We need today a larger faith and trust, and in 
this we find ourselves living in a condition where 
everything is possible; where everything we touch 
will blossom forth and bear gladness and joy to 

47 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

others. Receiving ourselves unstintedly, ungrudg- 
ingly, of that large and ample life which animates 
everything throughout universal space, we shall give 
freely with open hearts, so that no impoverished 
life shall ever flow from us. 



Students who have reached a certain point some- 
times wish to have full explanations given to them so 
that in some way they may derive personal benefit 
from the knowledge; but without the stimulus of 
effort, without trust, without faith, nothing is pos- 
sible. We go to sleep with full faith that we will 
arise the next morning. We sow a seed with full 
faith that Nature will perform her part, and the 
seed spring up and bear fruit. 



The great trouble with the human race is that its 
members do not rightly value the imagination with 
which they are blessed. It is imagination, recognised 
as a liberating power, that produces the gems of 
poetry and art which we so much admire, and it is 
the mind properly guided by this power which will 
elevate us all. 

48 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

I do not believe in miracles, but I hold that the 
imagination has a wonderful and creative power. 
I hold that if we let it soar in the world of spiritual 
and creative thought — and are not afraid to let it 
soar — it can create what truly seem to be miracu- 
lous things. 

Yet the imagination, like all things, is dual. 
Along lower lines it is as disintegrative in its power as 
it is creative and constructive on higher lines. 



Visualize! Visualize! You touch a mystic law 
when you create in imagination the picture of mighty 
things, for you open a door to new powers within 
yourself. Something in the way of potent energies is 
awakened and called into life and strength both 
without you and within. If you aspire, visualize 
your aspirations. Make a mind-picture of your 
spiritual ideals, a picture of the spiritual life as you 
know it to be, and carry that picture with you day 
by day. Cherish it as a companion. Carry it with 
you for breakfast, dinner and supper, and before you 
know it a new life has been born. Before you 
know it the Ideal has become the Real and you have 
taken your place as a creator, truly, in the great, 
divine Scheme of Life. 

49 



The Open Doors of Silence 

The power of silence! It is in the silence that we 
shall find the key, if we choose to search for it, that 
will open books of revelation in our natures. We 
shall find there a strength that has never been ours 
before and that never could be until we sought this 
path. . . . We shall find there the peace that 
passeth understanding. It may not come in a mo- 
ment, nor in accord with puny wishes and desires, 
but if the motive is unselfish, it will come. 



It steals into the life, into the heart and mind, 
like the grandest symphonies in music. It carries 
you above and out of and beyond your difficulties 
and your trials, and prepares you for the real life. 
The silence! The one touch of silent prayer! 



When a man in the silence becomes conscious of 
his own divine nature, he realizes if only for a moment 
that he is different from what he seems; he begins 
to feel that he is a god, as Theosophy declares; he be- 
gins to let the imagination pulse through his heart, 
telling him of mighty things beyond ordinary com- 
prehension; he begins to feel something of his duty 
to humanity. This is discipline. 

50 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

Discipline comes in many ways, but Theosophy 
shows one how a man, without help of book or 
creature, may yet find his own inner power, be no 
longer a mere potentiality. He will dig into the 
depths of his being that he may find wisdom. He 
will discover within himself a new quality of intui- 
tion, and at last, when touched by the 'feel' of this 
diviner life, the power of self-discipline will come to 
him, and he can stand and say / know! 



The more we are united in the silence in the 
attempt at self-purification, the nearer we are to 
the Light. . . . This great Movement of ours is a 
living Temple of Light, and all who are recognised 
as members have had an opportunity of entering 
into this Temple. . . . 

If we are to move out into the world as a mighty 
body — as examples of students, disciples, who are 
seeking self-purification, who are working for it — 
we must hold ourselves closely to the thought that 
we are in this Temple . . . that we are challenged 
to insist on self-purification. Never can we lose 
sight of the Light, never of our obligations or our 
Divinity, if we are to realize the sacredness of our 
calling. There is so much in these few words: the 
sacredness of one's calling! 

51 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

There is something growing in our hearts and in 
our daily lives that cannot be described, that can 
only be felt. But once felt, deeply, profoundly, we 
are then moving along the true path, outward into 
the world. We are rarefying the air; we are sancti- 
fying life. That is our mission — that is our mission. 



Let us not forget that we are gathered together 
at Lomaland for the purpose of serving humanity 
and bringing to it the knowledge that it needs; 
that this is not a commercial effort, nor simply an 
ordinary educational effort, but that it is a spiritual 
effort in the highest sense; and for that reason we 
must be spiritually endowed with those qualities 
that make for true nobility. 



I echo the words of my predecessor, William 
Quan Judge: "There is no idleness for the mystic. 
He finds his daily life among the roughest and 
hardest of the labors and trials of the world, per- 
haps, but goes on his way with smiling face and 
joyful heart, nor grows too sensitive for association 
with his fellows, nor so extremely spiritual as to 
forget that some other body is perhaps hungering 
for food." 

52 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

For we are one in essence; there is the inter- 
blending of forces so delicate, so subtle, that they 
cannot be perceived on this plane, yet they are ever 
at work, making or marring the destiny of a soul. . . . 

(From private instructions) 

There is self-destruction, even on physical lines, 
in carrying an atmosphere of wrong thought. We 
have it in our power not only to build our bodies into 
health, but to retain that health very much longer 
than the allotted 'three-score years and ten.' This 
I know; and I hold it a Theosophical duty to work 
towards this end, by right thinking and abstemious 
and thoughtful living. Moreover, in such an effort, 
if it is made unselfishly, we can positively temper our 
bodies, much as metal can be tempered, so that they 
are unaffected by things that would put a strain 
upon them ordinarily. 

J> 

You must take time for self-analysis. There 
must be time for the calm, reflective attitude of 
mind. Study the conditions surrounding you, the 
motives that actuate you in this or that effort or 
work, and determine with absolute honesty whether 
they are selfish, unselfish, or mixed. This will be 

53 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 



an uplifting, a clarifying process, for the conscience 
is at work. It is a confession, really, to the Higher 
Self, the Divinity within you. 



You invoke in such an effort the magic power 
latent in the silences of life. False ideas are gradual- 
ly eliminated under such a process, and true ones find 
their way in. Things once deemed necessary to the 
personal life become no longer so; and in thus mov- 
ing out into a larger field of thought and aspiration 
you move towards self-adjustment. 

In such thought you eliminate your weaknesses, 
and you learn also one great truth, a truth accen- 
tuated by the Nazarene: that you cannot serve two 
masters. You cannot move in opposite directions 
at one and the same time; you cannot ride two 
horses at once; and those who try it are certain to 
find themselves, sooner or later, arriving nowhere 
and more than likely trampled under the feet of both. 
No! Two masters you cannot serve; you have to 
choose between them, whether you wish to choose 
or not — and you choose for weal or woe. 



Think on these things in the silence; and re- 
member that when a selfish or personal thought 

54 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 



creeps in during silence, the door is shut and the 
Light cannot find its place; the soul is barred, and 
the day will bring little to you that will satisfy the 
better side of your nature. 



In the true condition of mind and heart there 
arises a sweet peace, which does not descend upon us 
from above, for we are in the midst of it. It is not 
like the sunshine, for no transitory clouds obscure 
its rays, but it is permanent and ever-abiding through 
all the days and years. Nothing can move us when 
this condition is reached. 



We have but to take the first step in the true 
spirit of brotherliness, and all other steps will follow 
in natural sequence. We have to be warriors and 
fight the old fight unceasingly, but leagued with us 
in this ancient fight are all the hosts of light. Behind 
man, back of all things, broods the eternal spirit 
of compassion. 

Humanity has long wandered through the dark 
valley of bitter experiences; but the mountain 
heights are again seen, suffused with the glow of 

55 



THE PATH Or THE MYSTIC 

dawn and the promise of a new Golden Age; a 
pathway is once more shown to that realm where 
the gods abide. 

J> 

See the gates of Life and Peace standing open 
before you, if you have but faith and trust to enter in. 
But none can enter alone, each must bring with him 
the sad and sorrowing. None can cross the threshold 
alone, but must help to bear the burdens of the over- 
burdened, must aid the feeble steps of those who are 
discouraged, must support those who are bowed 
down with sin and despair; and as he sends out the 
radiation of that joy and strength which he receives 
from his own aspirations and devotion to the Higher 
Self, joy and strength and power shall enter into the 
lives of these others, and together they shall pass 
through into Life. 

A vow is an action rising like a star high above the 
level of the common deeds of life. It is a witness that 
the outer man has at that moment realized its union 
with the inner, and the purpose of its existence, 
registering a great resolve to become one with the 
'Father in Heaven/ 

At that moment the radiant Path of Light is seen 

56 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

with the eye of pure vision, the disciple is reborn, 
the old life is left behind, he enters a new way. For 
a moment he feels the touch of a guiding hand ever 
stretched out to him from the inner chamber. For 
a moment his ear catches the harmonies of the soul. 
It is the descent upon him of the 'Holy Ghost,' 
the 'Grace of God.' 

All this and more is the experience of those who 
make this vow with their whole hearts, and as they 
constantly renew it, and constantly renew their en- 
deavor, the harmonies come again and again, and the 
clear Path is once more beheld. 

They carry the inspiration into outer life, and 
energize with it their common duties, high and low: 
gain from it strength for self-sacrifice, and thus 
bringing the inner into the outer, pouring forth in 
deeds that Wine of Divine Life of which they have 
learned to partake, they achieve, little by little, 
the harmony of perfect life. Each effort carves the 
path of the next, and in no long time one single 
moment's silence will bring forth to the Disciple's 
aid the strength of his soul. 

{From private instructions) 



57 



Nature, the Mystic Mother 

Think of Nature in her splendor and her glory, 
her supreme, divine willingness to serve, of how she 
stands in the silence, urging us to the better things 
of life! Then think of music — of how it steals into 
our souls and our lives, bringing us, if only for a 
moment, into a unity and concord of spirit such as is 
rarely found. Could we hold the feeling born of such 
experiences, could we carry their inspiration with us 
from morning to night, from night to morning, in our 
duties, our struggles, our sorrows, our battles in the 
great arena of life — joy would indeed abide with 
us, even with suffering as our lot. 



Nature is so beneficent, so ready to heal and 
bless. When the pressure of cares and trials is almost 
too great to be borne and I feel the need of help in 
finding a larger patience, I go to Nature, and there 
I find it again and again. She is the mystic mother 
of us all. 

You cannot observe Nature without realizing that 
there is within and behind the outer an inner, a 
center of mystic life. In her more beautiful aspects 

58 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

she has attained to something which humanity lacks. 
And yet when the human touch is given there is a 
response: the flower that is nurtured by man's 
hand becomes a more beautiful flower, because there 
is a spiritual unity in the efforts of man and Nature, 
working together. One whose heart is touched with 
the love of these things is growing spiritually and 
someday will find the great, the profounder, meaning 
of life. 

Every time the wind blows it is singing you a 
song of the gods. Every time a flower blossoms it is 
bringing you a message from the Higher Law. Every 
time you hear the ocean as it beats against the 
shore and recedes in musical rhythm, it is speaking 
to your soul — a voice from Nature, verily a voice 
from God. The magnitude, the grandeur of these 
things, the possibilities folded within them — these 
can truly be sensed only in the silence. 



But alas! we do not pause; we will not listen to 
the inner voice that is ever calling us to the better 
things of life. We have no time — or so we think; 
we are in the whirl and nightmare of delusion. The 
glory of the Higher Law is little perceived by the 

59 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

multitude; the grandeur of Nature is not felt as it 
might be, nor is music, nor the diviner silent har- 
monies of our own Higher Selves. We are hide- 
bound in our prejudices and misconceptions, and — 
let me say it plainly — in our ignorance. So that 
in spite of the royal, divine light within us, we are 
in the shadows and we cannot find our way. 



When I look out over the world and see humanity 
with its sin, unbrotherliness and despair, if it were 
not for the birds and flowers, the trees and the blue 
overhead, I could not bear the picture: I should 
lose heart. . . . But between mankind and Nature 
a mystic alliance exists, and this, once recognised 
and acknowledged, becomes a redemptive power. 



Every day has its brightness, its bloom, its color; 
every day is the happiest I ever lived. There is no 
thought of yesterday or tomorrow, only the joy of 
living today, the happiness of the passing moment, 
the unity of all life and the noble plan of life uni- 
versal. I see on one side forces of darkness, on the 
other those of Light; but I do not dwell on the dark 
side. I turn my eyes to greet the rising sun. 

60 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

A new hope is dawning on humanity. . . . This 
hope is the mainspring of progression and the evi- 
dence of it can be seen everywhere; the great heart 
of Nature pulsates with joy, as it did in the days pre- 
ceding the dawn of the dark age. Men and women 
who have so long borne the heavy burden of life, 
whose hearts have been well-nigh broken by the 
weight of many sorrows, feel the new joy awakened 
by the great symphonies of harmony which are now 
being sounded. It is felt in the heart of man and 
gives rise to constant aspiration; it is the quality 
which makes him great. 

The golden light is shining; the herald of the 
morning proclaims the message of love anew; the 
ripples of the waves on the sea-shore lisp the glad 
song; the breeze bears it on its bosom; the tints of 
the flowers convey it; it shines forth from the stars 
in their sparkling brilliance; the great blue dome 
above suggests it; the birds warble it forth from 
every tree; the new-born babe is a complete revela- 
tion of it; the eyes of the loved ones passing into the 
great beyond impart the strength and courage of 
that great hope, and point to a future day when they 
shall return again to carry on their work. For hope 
incarnates from age to age, and where hope dwells, 
beauty and love abide for ever. 

The Law is immutable and Love is eternal. 

61 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

Yet, as in every advance that Nature makes, as 
the cycles in their wheeling course come round, 
there are some who lag behind and lose sight of 
their heritage, blinded by the desire of personal 
gain, by ambition and love of power; so that today 
there are some who refuse the opportunity that for 
ages their souls have waited for. The cycles have 
brought them and ourselves to the point of former 
achievement and former failure. . . . We and they 
have met in the past as in this life, and shall meet 
again in the future, and by our action today we are 
forging the links that shall help or mar their progress, 
as well as our own and that of all humanity, in 
the future. 

But the crucial point of the cycle is past; the 
fiercest ordeal is over; no powers in heaven or hell 
can longer stay the onward progress of humanity. 
The Hosts of Light are already victorious. The 
anthem of Truth, Light and Liberation, Brother- 
hood, Peace and Joy, is echoing in the hearts of men. 
Comrades, arise! Greet the morn! Salute with us 
the rising sun! 



62 



SECTION IV 



Cearfjer anb g>tubent 



A very truism , z^« uttered by a Teacher^ 
has a deeper meaning for which the student 
should seek, but which he will lose if he stops 
to criticize and weigh the words in mere 
ordinary scales. 

— William Quan Judge 



The Beaming Thought 

A PURE, strong, unselfish thought, beaming in 
the mind, lifts the whole being to the heights 
of Light. From this point can be discerned, 
to a degree, the sacredness of the moment and 
the day. 

To attain, to attain. . . . 

{From ' School of Antiquity Bulletin ') 

When the disciple begins consciously to deepen 
and broaden his life according to the highest law of 
his being, he must remember that confusion of ideas, 
behind which lies desire, will meet him at every step. 
The beaming thought as the Watcher and Master, 
recognised as such, becomes the helping power. 
Reflect! {From 'School of Antiquity Bulletin 1 ) 

Dismiss the things of the world, its ways, its 
interests and its limited habits of thought. Kill out 
in yourselves the desire for these and find the larger 
life. Truly, these selfish desires and demands are 
but phantoms placed in your way by Karma, called 
up by Karma out of the past of yourselves and re- 
vivified with a false and seeming life by the very 
force of your aspirations. 

65 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 



Why not recognise them as such, see them for 
what they are, dismiss them once and for all, and 
look through the mists of self and desire to the 
Sublime Reality beyond? 



The very fact that you find stumbling-blocks in 
your way should give you an influx of courage, a 
positive joy, because of the opportunity thus pre- 
sented to you to cast them away for ever. Self- 
conquest! Is that not what you are here for? Is it 
not what your soul led you here for? Is it not one 
of the very things that attracted you to Theosophy 
— a great objective, an ideal, a mystic goal? Why 
not, then, look at the matter squarely and act with- 
out fear or compromise? Every time you compro- 
mise on this vital point, remember, you are holding 
back the world's great reconstructive work and just 
so many more hungry souls are left starving for the 
Bread of the Spirit. Move away from limitations 
and delusions and step into the larger life! 



The cry of the present day is for receipts — re- 
ceipts for this or that, brain-mind directions for 
everything, from how to succeed in business to how 
to talk with Mars. The soul does not need receipts. 

66 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

Study these words — from the writings of William 
Quan Judge and reflecting truths as old as the 
universe itself: 

" Those who ask for particularity of advice are 
not yet grown to the stature of a hero who, being all, 
dareth all; who, having fought many a fight in other 
lives, rejoices in his strength and fears neither life 
nor death, neither sorrow nor abuse, and wishes no 
ease himself while others suffer." 



If you are in the right place, at the right time, 
and working in the right way, you have nothing in 
the universe to fear. And if you are following duty 
with that discrimination and resourcefulness that 
belongs to you as a soul, you are in the right place 
and working in the best possible way, however 
humble the duty may seem to be. "Nothing is 
great, nothing is small in the divine economy." 

It is necessary, however, to discriminate between 
what is your duty and what is not; and the brain- 
mind cannot help you here. More than likely it will 
simply be in your way. You will have to seek refuge 
in the intuitional part of your nature, for intuition is 
the real, the mystic teacher. It is the voice of 
the soul in man. 

67 



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. We have not 



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rresiitr uu:u z -: ar 
ideals. We zarutut ■_ 
in a way that shall 

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rains are sundering 
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way whose own litd 

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sense. ::: : re. we ire :r. griard instinctively 

Br: in seer :ne : : : is :er:ain - ---5 u-tr::e::erl. 
guarded : the siler: ~arr:r-f;r:e :: : rr 

aspira: ions amd Spiritual Jost :e::re retiring 

— that is tike time 

* 

In sleep the srtl is free .::t:::.:: 
st a:es, finer worlcls :: thought ind :ee..r.g. ir vulvin g, 
growing, expanding — ind it longs to can 
it, the you of prosa : daily he The son] is ithin as 

— 771 ve: i: is r:: :here 5 2 rr. T -"5:e"" here 



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number and color is applied and o:::::; by the 
tuths :na: enables :he Teacher :: strike the higher 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 



tones and awake the spiritual vision. . . . The 
forces have gone to the ends of the world, and oppor- 
tunities for labor and success will be had such as 
none have dreamed of. 



Your Spiritual Strength 

Kill out timidity! Kill out fear! We are con- 
stantly upon the fringe of great opportunities and at 
some crucial point, and then, instead of grasping 
these opportunities and moving on to a larger view 
and a broader spiritual life, we shrink, we hold back 
through timidity — and so we lose them all. The 
present is an unusual cycle, and never in this life 
will we meet present opportunities again. 



Let us be careful, in making this forward step, 
that we do not ungird our armor through fear. 

Fear nothing, for every renewed effort raises all 
former failures into lessons, all sins into experiences. 
Understand me when I say that in the light of 
renewed effort the Karma of all your past alters; 
it no longer threatens; it passes from the plane of 
penalty before the soul's eye, up to that of tuition. 
It stands as a monument, a reminder of past 

70 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

weakness and a warning against future failure. 

So fear nothing for yourself; you are behind the 
shield of your reborn endeavor, though you have 
failed a hundred times. Try slowly to make it your 
motive for fidelity that others may be faithful. Fear 
only to fail in your duty to others, and even then let 
your fear be for them not yourself. Not for thousands 
of years have the opposing forces been so accen- 
tuated. Not one of you can remain neutral; if you 
think you can, and seek to do so, in reality you are 
adding your powers to those of darkness and lending 
your strength to the forces of evil. The cry has gone 
out to each, and each must choose. . . . This is 
your opportunity. 

Will you have it recorded that your vow was of 
the lips or of the heart? You have studied and 
thought, many of you long and faithfully; bring 
forth the fruit of this now as action, for the hour 
has struck. Humanity calls for aid. Who of you 
has the strength? The will to go forward? To them 
I call, and upon them already is the flush and the 
Light of the Victory beyond conception. 

{From private instructions) 



We live very little in our bodies, actually in 
them; we live rather in a world of ideas and aspira- 

71 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

tions above and about us. Our great task is to bring 
these ideas and aspirations into concrete expression, 
to make them actual, practical, in a word to make 
them into deeds. And in doing this we must learn to 
follow lines of least resistance, ever trusting in 
the Law. 

J> 

As students of Theosophy you are here to gain 
your freedom; but to gain it you will have to accen- 
tuate the spirit of brotherly love. To gain it you 
will have to work for it, also, and work understand- 
ingly. And yet it is so easy, so simple. If you hold 
close to duty, and keep a sweet, impersonal love 
burning in your heart, all the rest will come; and 
that has its practical application in many ways. 
For example, if you do not like another, if you do not 
like to work with him when it is a duty to do so, con- 
sider that a challenge, and stand up and meet the 
test. That is practical Brotherhood; that is Theo- 
sophy. 

<*> 

There is nothing so lamentable as to see one 
who has touched our philosophy, go on with duty 
half-heartedly. He is robbing the future and his 
own life of something that his soul is actually 
crying for. 

72 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

I do not propose to cater to your whims, your 
notions, your personality, your selfishness — not at 
all. What I propose to do, and what I am doing, is 
to give you a supreme, a royal opportunity to round 
out your lives — and certainly to keep you from 
destroying your best chances in life. My aim is to 
help you find your spiritual strength. 



Remember this: that if you avoid issues which 
come up now in your lives, you will have to meet 
them later on and probably with less help than 
you have now. 

J> 

Let it be remembered that the Teacher's work, 
the real work, has naught to do with words written or 
spoken. This, my children, I have tried again and 
again to teach you, to awake you to an understand- 
ing of what that real work is, and even that such a 
thing was possible. 

In the past, when vibratory forces were still 
understood, words were never used or looked for in 
the conveyance of the Higher Teachings. Let me 
make this clearer: — 

Listen to the note of a bell resounding; its vibra- 
tions get fainter and fainter, but though there comes 

73 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

at last a point, different for different people, when 
the sound is utterly lost for the outer ear, we know 
that the thrill is broadening out, and will forever go 
on doing so, into eternal and boundless space. And 
especially where the note is from a human voice it 
carries out with it a quality from the consciousness 
of him who sent it forth. . . . 

{From private instructions) 

The presence of the soul is eternally manifest — to 
the degree that you hold to the path of right action, 
to the degree that you love and aspire and strive. 
You must cultivate a larger trust, a larger hope. And 
there must be constant, quiet effort on a thoroughly 
balanced line, without this spasmodic shifting up 
and down. Holding to calmness and balance, striv- 
ing continually and with no concern as to results, 
before you know it the victory will be yours. 



Your spiritual energy grows day by day and 
hour by hour just so far as you permit it to grow and 
help it to evolve. It is a force that is very real and 
immensely powerful — a potent force that becomes, 
if you do not prevent it, a great wheel of activity 
in the universe. 

74 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

People copy each other too much; it is a universal 
human tendency. But you, as students of Theo- 
sophy, should not do so, for in spite of the fact that 
you are all so very unlike, having evolved differently 
and through different experiences, you have immense 
resources spiritually if you but draw upon them. 
So that you should learn to 'build your own at- 
mosphere' as I so often say. Strike out on your 
own lines, not another's. In a word, have the 
courage to be yourselves. 



Dare to be yourself — your greater Self! Dare 
to leap forward and be something you never before 
knew it was in you to be! Dare to move out and up- 
ward in the strength of your soul and find something 
new in your make-up. It is a critical time for every- 
one who aspires, for many things are in the balance. 
The need is for energy, aspiration, trust, and the 
power of the Spiritual Will. "The more one dares, 
the more he shall obtain." 



Think of the effort we have made to vitalize our 
Theosophical work by protesting against the cold 
intellectualism of the age! We began by a protest 
in our own ranks; and the influence of this has 

75 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

spread out and has reached the so-called leaders of 
the time. In spite of the selfishness of the age, the 
Heart Doctrine is permeating all strata of society. 
Yet how much, how very, very much, remains to 
be done! 

J> 

The cry of my heart to you all is to be unto your- 
selves the Greater Selves. Never should you be 
half-hearted in any thought or act for the betterment 
of your fellows. Sound the depths of your own na- 
tures and restore the gods to their rightful place! 
Make humanity feel your strength ! Heroically unite 
as warriors, called to serve in the darkest hours of 
the history of centuries! This is our golden oppor- 
tunity. We have earned the right. 



One who declares himself a student of Theosophy, 
in that moment invokes his higher nature, the war- 
rior-quality of his soul. He also invokes the Divine 
Law which governs his life. He makes a larger de- 
mand upon that Law and declares himself to be 
more receptive to it. 

As to vigilance: how attentive we are to the 
material part of our lives in the sense of being 

76 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

vigilant! How much more attentive, as humanity 
goes, than to the spiritual! But as students of 
Theosophy we have a sacred duty: to study the 
duality of our nature and take a stand for vigilance in 
the inner life. Let us see that the help which goes 
out from us to another is help to the Higher Self. 
Vigilance on our part will give us power to render 
such help. Vigilance in spiritual things — that is 
the supreme need. 

The loyal and true-hearted are always on the 
alert; they are ever ready. For them the gods are 
not a procession of phantoms, but living realities. 
They know how to profit by each new opportunity, 
and each day sees them at their post, ready for their 
allotted work. For them the granite and clay are 
luminous creations, resplendent with color, rich with 
enchantment. Unclouded by doubt or suspicion, 
they falter not nor fail. 



Do not worry; do not fear; do not think about 
results. Set plans come from the brain-mind, and 
in creative work that cannot be allowed to rule. 
There is a method of fashioning the life so that this 
will not be; then the brain-mind will keep its place 

77 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

as the servant, not the tormentor of the soul. It is 
something to think about when you get up in the 
morning and when you retire at night. It is very 
close to what I mean when I speak to you of trust 
in the Higher Law. 

As writers you are so often carried away with 
your themes and with the fear that you will not do 
them justice. If you could only learn the meaning of 
preparation — preparation in the Theosophic sense ! 
If you would only take part of the time at your 
command, however limited, for spiritual preparation , 
never taking up your pen until you are mentally 
in order, a Book of Revelations would come. 



Electing difficult things while they are easy, and 
managing great things in their beginnings — this is 
the way, as the sages of antiquity have taught. The 
wise man takes account of small things and so never 
has any difficulty. "Transact your business before 
it takes form." 

Practice accuracy in every detail of thought, 
speech and action. While you need not look for 

78 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 



results, results will speak to you and bring encourage- 
ment. . . . Practice punctuality in everything. 
Promptness and neatness mean economy of time, 
money, material, energy, and thought. 



Practice system. This means a methodical ar- 
rangement of time, work and material, and also a 
methodical arrangement of thinking. Remember 
that system is a channel for effective utilization of 
one's forces. 

In offering suggestions to others, remember that 
every suggestion carries in it a measure of criticism. 
Let your criticism begin at home. As H. P. Blavatsky 
says: " Be more severe with yourself than with others; 
be more charitable towards others than towards 
yourself." 

J> 

There is always the superb energy of Eternity in 
the heart of one who does his best. If at the moment 
when this is felt the man would pause, reflect and 
meditate, he would find his way to the Light. The 
mysteries of his nature, his own Inner Self, would 
be revealed to him. 

79 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

As we move out into the future with this mighty 
soul-urge of universal love, we implant in the very 
atmosphere in which we live and breathe a something 
that was not there before — seeds that take root and 
grow and blossom in the hearts of all with whom we 
come in contact. So that, since these things are 
true, there must be in the work of a true Theosophist 
a forgetfulness of self, a confidence superb in its 
power, a soul-confidence that will impregnate our 
very mental atmosphere with a wisdom that can be 
breathed in mentally by all who come in contact 
with us. 

And I hold that just so far as a Theosophist 
makes his life true, strong, powerful, and selfless, 
just so far is he building mighty and glorious ideals 
for the future — ideals that the world cannot today 
comprehend, but that are recorded upon the mystic 
screen of time, though they may stand waiting for 
ages for our minds to understand them fully and 
our souls live up to them. 



Unbrotherliness is the insanity of the age, as I 
have often said; and those who cultivate the feeling 
of separateness and self give evidence at times of the 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

very absence of the Ego. Truly the soul is not there. 
Unkindly criticism is the most untheosophical thing 
in the world; it heaps up a terrible Karma, for it 
shuts the soul away. 

Climb! Ever keep climbing! The path winds 
upward — this wonderful path of self-mastery — but 
to the unselfish and courageous it is a path of victory 
and joy. Throw away the lower viewpoint — yes, 
throw it right out of your lives! You must unite for 
self-conquest: then all other things will come. I 
have told you these things so often, but how can I 
help talking and talking, and pleading and pleading, 
and working and working? I do not want you to 
awaken when it is too late. 



Difficult as it must be for you to believe what I 
say, yet it is true that the Kingdom of Heaven is 
nearer at hand than you can realize, and that all the 
storms, trials and sorrows that we see now raging in 
human life are but indications of the passing away 
of the old order of things. All that we have to do is 
to seize our opportunities, do faithfully our duties as 
they lie before us, ingrain in the very atmosphere in 
which we live the finer vibrations of the Higher Law, 
study and work, work and study. 

81 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

Let us no longer crucify the Christ in ourselves! 
Bid him come forth and enter upon his noble work 
now, for the woes of humanity are great ! Say ye not, 
Comrades, It shall be done? 

{From private instructions) 

Comrades of my heart, see you not that this is 
the pivotal moment for you to grasp the hand of your 
Warrior Companion reached out to you to lead you 
on and up to the realm where your thoughts and 
deeds will be those of gods? Stand unfailingly on 
guard, the sentinel of your own inner chamber, vigi- 
lant against the entry there of the least of the lurking 
foes about the doorway of the sanctum. Through 
that doorway goes and returns the soul, and it is 
your task to see that it is unimpeded in its freedom to 
act and to help. 

I find freedom to act and to help. I find myself 
in every thought filled with an intense longing to 
have you know better the Helpers of the Race, the 
Elder Brothers. They have trod, as you now tread, 
the dark valley to win final liberation! Your path 
is easier because they have already traversed it, 
easier yet because of the love and compassion they 
send back to you. 

Oh that every atom in my being were a thousand- 

82 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

pointed star to help men see the divine everywhere, 
to know their limitless power, to feel while in the 
body the exhaustless joy of real life, to wake and live 
instead of dreaming the heavy dreams of this living 
death, to know themselves as at once part of and 
directors of Universal Law. This is your birthright 
of Wisdom, and the hour of attainment is now 
if you will. 

"Tarry no longer in the delusion Hall of Learn- 
ing." Feel, Know and Do! 

You are face to face with the defeats of the past, 
but in your hands is a new weapon forged in all past 
struggles. Wherefore arise, claim your own, move 
on to the sublime peace that shall follow the final 
Victory! {From private instructions) 



A teacher is one who leads you to the Light; 
who shows you how to summon to your aid the 
help that lies hidden in the silences of life, in the 
silences of time and space, in the low, silent chambers 
of Duty. But you must do your part as student. 
Reflect! 



There is a state of consciousness that is an 
open way to the Light. 

83 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 



Karma is lifting the veil, and we can, if we will, 
look to the future with that certainty that is born 
only of pure motive. 



We are indeed at the pivotal point of our world's 
history, and are called upon to act our part nobly, 
wisely, courageously, dispassionately, and justly. 



Teacher and student are links in a great spiritual 
chain, extending from infinity to infinity, from past 
to future. Invisible and intangible, this nevertheless 
exists, a golden chain of spiritual life, a great Reality. 
As a link in this chain, man becomes both giver and 
receiver, passing on the torch of truth from hand to 
hand, from nation to nation, and from age to age. 



84 



SECTION V 



Wi)t ^twct-€ty of tfje ^orfo 



How can I withdraw from the world? 
With whom should I associate if not with 
suffering mankind? The prevailing disorder 
is what requires my efforts. 

— Confucius. 



The Vortex of Human Life 

THE world is crying out for help, for hope. But 
this can never come save from those who know 
their own natures, who cannot be deceived by 
the subtle voice of evil, whose lives show forth the 
guiding presence of the soul in every act and thought, 
who shed at every moment the blood of their 
compassion. {From private instructions) 



The heart-cry of the world is a prayer to the 
Higher Law, a longing for better things. 



Seeing the misery of the world as I do, and coming 
in close contact in correspondence with hundreds of 
despairing souls, I feel the urging of that great Heart 
of Humanity to plead with my Comrades to make a 
new effort, and to seek every moment of the day to 
strengthen that effort by noble deeds and by pure 
thoughts and actions. If each would do his part in 
this, all the rest would care for itself. 



The great whirling vortex of human life holds the 
mind in a nightmare of delusion. I would not pre- 

87 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

sume to say this were the facts not before me to 
support it. I need only ask you to look at the 
world as it is. 

As a nation we have reflected our failures as well 
as our successes upon other nations. . . . America 
is the great melting-pot; it is the school-house of the 
world. It is the great arena where the mighty prob- 
lems of the future will be brought for contemplation 
and discussion. There is in America an aggregation 
of thought and feeling the influence of which is 
potent on many planes. 

Our limitations are felt in our laws, and therefore 
our efforts should be not for the hour or the day or 
the generation. They should be for the ages. . . . 

I am pleading for the innocent children of our 
Republic. I am pleading in the name of Justice and 
Theosophy. I am pleading with the public con- 
science of America for a more accentuated effort 
towards new and just laws. 



Humanity is stifled and the world held down and 
back by the psychology of pessimism. So many 
have no faith in themselves, no faith in each other. 
Some are pleading for help and light, it is true, for 
something that can still the craving of the heart, but 
so many are content with the superficial. And this 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

black psychology, sweeping in, affects to some degree 
the minds of all. Even the strongest, the best, find 
it a constant struggle to live up to their possibilities 
because of this subtle, disintegrative force. Yet to 
everyone who seriously pushes forward in spite of 
this, a new door opens with each day, a new cycle — 
truly, a new world. 

<*> 

The student has to realize what a potent force 
is psychology. The whole mass of humanity is a 
psychological field on inner planes, a vast aggrega- 
tion of opposing forces, some pushing towards light 
and harmony, but the great bulk of them against 
advancement and against the truth. 



The great onward rush of human effort for better 
things is intense, very intense . . . yet so many 
wander away from the path of light. Losing sight 
of their Divinity, the godlike, guiding power within, 
they wander this way and that, searching this way 
and that, through this book and that, and so on, 
all along the way. Their faces, their words, their 
writings, tell the story of disillusionment and failure. 
And the remedy? Does it not lie in the finding 
of the SELF? 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

The present is a critical time, and if we are to 
reach that point at which peace of mind is possible, 
we must accentuate the Divinity of Man — and so 
beautifully, so truly, that the questions of injustice 
which now cannot be answered will then be ex- 
plained Theosophically. 



The time is coming — and it is not so far distant — 
when the nations will cry out in their horror of the 
despotism that is now touching different nations in 
different ways, through different systems and under 
different names, for the knowledge that we possess, 
for the secret that binds us together, for the power 
that has brought us to a position of unity which the 
world cannot understand. 



Under the pressure of all that is happening out 
in the world — much that is seen now and much that 
will be seen later in the spirit of unbrotherliness, 
running into insanity and despotism, everywhere 
despotism — our vow becomes a beacon-light in our 
hearts, a beacon-light in the world. Let us bathe in 
the spirit of it, illumine our minds by the light of it. 
Let us fortify ourselves, and protest, not only against 
the evil in our own natures but against evil said 

90 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 



of another, and the evil doing of those who take 
the name of Truth to cloak their unrighteousness. 



It matters not how much money we may accumu- 
late, how much scholastic learning we may possess, 
how many magnificent structures we may erect in the 
name of civilization. Unless we arrive at a better 
understanding of brotherly toleration, we are working 
in vain for the future. 



In our selfish indifference as a people we are un- 
consciously taking part in the crimes of the world; 
we are absolutely factors in these crimes. Only 
because we have lost the power of spiritual dis- 
crimination are we able to view present conditions 
with equanimity. We have been taught to judge by 
appearances, to perceive the physical, outer man 
and the brain-mind alone; we have ignored the 
existence of the inner life, the Real Self of man, 
that which looks behind the veils of illusion and 
sees things as they are. . . . We are arrant cowards 
if we do not begin to think and work and hope 
along new lines, when the whole world is crying 
out for help! 

91 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

To reach the truth there must be in the aspiring 
mind a certain quality of resolution, determination; 
and yet the truth is all about us, sweeping as on 
invisible currents into the very atmosphere in which 
we live. It is as though brooding over the world in 
its sorrow were a great urge, a great soulful power, 
standing between Deity and man's endeavor to rise 
and go unto his own. It is the real intermediator, 
and one feels its presence when in one's highest mood. 
One cannot think of the battle-fields across the water, 
the devastated nations, the deserted homes, the 
neglected, persecuted children, without feeling some- 
thing of its power. And the question arises: shall 
mankind go backward, hardened, cynical, skeptical 
and discouraged, or push forward and upward with 
these new currents of life? 

J> 

If we fail to understand ourselves, if we fail in our 
duty to the Higher Self, we are absolutely out of place 
in attempting to help others. For how can we help 
our brothers understandingly unless we understand 
ourselves? We shall overdo or underdo or perhaps 
not do anything at all. 

Only a few, a very few, are willing to 'take trouble' 
for humanity, and as long as this is the case we may 

92 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

expect menacing conditions in our civilization. Many 
people with splendid possibilities seem to be so near 
— almost touching, in fact — the fringe of the great 
truth. But they close their eyes to the need, they 
turn away and walk on, satisfied with their own little 
path because to do otherwise is 'too much trouble.' 
Nevertheless, because of the thought and effort of 
just the few who love humanity, a benediction is 
certain to come. In time our thought-life will be- 
come rarefied; men's minds will be touched with a 
new power sprung from the optimism and the hope 
of the few who defend the truth; we shall look down 
over the hills and into the valleys and see godlike 
men and women walking there; we shall feel ere 
long the influence, the mighty overshadowing, of a 
new civilization! 



In the heart-touch is the saving quality which will 
redeem humanity and bring about Universal Brother- 
hood. The word 'charity' should be eliminated. In 
the name of charity men and women have been 
treated like so much personal baggage and labeled 
accordingly. Out of the great heart of Nature all 
things proceed, and all things lead back there at last; 
all worlds and systems of worlds, from the great 

93 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

central sun to the smallest particle in space, must 
thrill responsive to the pulsations of that infinite 
heart of compassion. The great mother reaches 
forth to receive her own. All efforts to retard are less 
than insignificant. In every act which partakes of 
the divine quality of infinite compassion lies con- 
cealed the potency of all the spheres. All Nature 
obeys the command of one whose heart beats con- 
stantly for others. 



Infinite patience and infinite love are required in 
dealing with the weaknesses of humanity. . . . Oh 
that love could flow freely through the hearts of all 
men, uncolored by personality! Then a new day 
would dawn, verily. 



The Day of Achievement is Here 

The hero of today must be a hero of heroes. 
The ideal must no longer be left remote from life, 
but made divinely human, close and intimate, as 
of old. NOW is the day of resurrection. Man 
looking up will see the old ideals restored, and 
seeing, live. 

94 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

My hopes go out in the very atoms of the air. 
They are sounded in the silences of the night, when 
the world is sleeping and the veil is lifted for a space 
between the weaknesses of those who suffer and 
their aspirations. 

In our love for poor humanity, let us salute the 
Law in a warriorlike spirit; and let us call forth 
from our hearts a new inspiration, breathing itself 
into a new tone of silent calm effort for peace and 
light everywhere. Let it be a radiation of the 
Diviner Life within ourselves, binding us to the 
New Order of Ages that we have chosen to build. 



Great as have been the discoveries of the past 
century, still greater are those to follow. . . . 

Greater exponents of art will be born among us; 
they will present higher standards and create grander 
ideals. Literature will gain a new impetus from the 
new creators who will come to serve the masses with 
a "feast of reason and a flow of soul" on lines never 
dreamed of in modern times. Science will ... as- 
tonish the age with its discoveries of some of Nature's 
finer forces. . . . 

But the greatest development is not to be looked 

95 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

for on the material plane and in physical science 
and invention; more marvelous still will be the un- 
folding of the nature of man on spiritual and mental 
lines. The possibilities that lie before us in these 
directions would, if presented today, meet only with 
incredulity and condemnation, for in this material 
age man cannot understand the heights that may 
be attained through self-mastery. 



We should not become so absorbed in the little 
achievement of today as to render it impossible for 
us to receive the key to the wider knowledge of the 
future. If we could realize the voice of the soul 
working behind the ordinary mentality, we should 
consciously become receptive to higher influences 
and more spiritual realities; we should bring about 
that condition within ourselves where we should hear 
the divine melodies, restoring harmony throughout 
all nature. In this way we should become pioneers, 
opening up the vision of men to the vast and unex- 
plored regions of life, and being conscious of this 
possibility, so stimulate every energy that the very 
atoms in space, the atoms composing every or- 
ganism, would change and begin to respond to the 
divine impulse. 

96 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

To attain! Man was born into this world to at- 
tain, and to do this he must struggle as the child 
struggles to pass through the gates of birth. To 
attain he must surmount conditions, break through 
all limitations, and persevere in effort until he reaches 
that spiritual perfection that is the Theosophic ideal. 



If man only had the courage to step out into the 
realm of real thought ! For that realm holds the great 
secrets of human nature which are the real mys- 
teries of life. 

J> 

America must rise to something more than com- 
mercial prosperity or intellectual advancement. I 
believe that this great country is the chosen spot 
for solving some of life's greatest problems. But we 
must become more united and recognise the fact that 
Brotherhood is a fact in Nature. We must live up 
to it in all the smallest duties and all the time. If we 
learn the necessity for right living and justice to all, 
we shall not have to wait for the Kingdom of 
Heaven. . . . 

And so I say to the young: study the Constitu- 
tion of the United States; go back to the spirit that 
actuated the formation of that Constitution. When 

97 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

I read it I feel myself in touch with the splendid 
minds who drafted it. They were so united in pur- 
pose, so lifted out of their own personalities, so im- 
bued with the need of some splendid, inspiring hope 
for future generations, that they were 'gathered 
together' in the real sense — as when Christ said, 
"For where two or three are gathered together in 
my name, there am I in the midst of them." 



Rich as America is, progressive as it is in many 
ways, it has not yet touched the key to that remedial 
power that alone can lift the burdens from the people. 
Something more than material wealth is needed, 
something more than intellectual accumulation. 



Intellectualism has no lasting power without the 
practice of the highest morality. 



The first step to be taken in occultism is the prac- 
tice of unselfishness, for all work for humanity 
should be performed without thought of reward. 
Such work is of greater importance than the mere 
cultivation of the intellect or the collection of 
large libraries. 

98 



Foreshadowings 

{The following have a special and in some ways 
prophetic interest because written so many years ago. 
They are excerpts from editorials appearing in 1897 
and 1898.) 

Are there not, in our civilization today, signs 
that mark a unique barbarism among us, showing an 
immense danger of retrogression ? Can we not see, 
in spite of all the good there is in the world, that the 
very blood of some of our brothers is teeming with a 
heartless cruelty, a subtle viciousness, and a mon- 
strous selfishness and hypocrisy? Is not the world 
brimful of unrest, unhappiness, injustice and despair; 
and are we not on the very edge of a condition 
which, if not improved, must sweep away the bright 
prospects of our present civilization? 



Today, as a people, we are by our thoughts and 
actions affecting to no small degree the record of the 
next century. We are adding one more link to the 
chain of events on both the lower and the higher 
planes of evolution. It is high time that we eliminate 
from our minds unfaith and egotism, cynicism and 

99 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

selfishness, and prepare ourselves to be a part of 
the great movement of spiritual life which is now 
close at hand. . . . 

The world seems mad today, moving towards a 
point at the end of this cycle where only stanch, 
firm, tempered hearts can turn this tide in the 
affairs of men to a higher plane of action. 

Viewing the present striking aspects, can we for 
one moment be satisfied to live contentedly and 
selfishly in the shadow of darkness and unrest? Is it 
possible for anyone having one grain of human pity 
in the heart, or love of truth and justice, to do aught 
but work, work, all the time unflinchingly and un- 
selfishly, for his brother man and all creatures — not 
apart from but among them, with a courage that 
obscures all thought of self? 



We should regard present events as transitory, 
leading to a more permanent and higher develop- 
ment. Indeed, we should learn practical wisdom 
through these varied and trying experiences. We 
must stand face to face with facts in the life of 
the world. 

We can find light shining in dark places if we do 

100 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 



not externally hold to forms and appearances. If we 
can but exert ourselves to think above the at- 
mosphere of doubt and despair, we can find peace 
even amid the whirl and restlessness of life. 



& 



Now is the time, for at the end of this century an 
opportunity is given to humanity that it has not had 
for thousands of years. The cycle has reached its 
point of swiftest momentum; an effort made today 
has greater effect than at any other point of the cycle. 
It is like the ninth wave on the seashore which the 
fisherman waits for, that he may bring his smack 
safely to land. Today a small effort brings great 
results; today sudden progress can be made that 
could not be accomplished before in months or even 
years. Today is the great opportunity to enter 
the Path. 

But this cannot be accomplished unless men 
realize the essential Divinity of their own natures. . . . 
True progress begins with this step alone. Too 
long has poor humanity been living on the outer 
edge of truth and light; too long has help been 
sought from without; too long has the inner divine 
nature been obscured and the shadows of external 
life mistaken for the reality. 

101 . 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 



Unconsciously we may be playing into the hands 
of the Brothers of the Shadow by a careless thought, 
a lightly spoken word. We may thus strengthen 
their destructive work until what was in us a thought, 
becomes a terrific force, gathering momentum as 
it goes, until finally it results in some national 
calamity. . . . 

We cannot be too careful, let it be reiterated. 
The destiny of the nation lies in the hands of the 
people; today we stand on the verge of great 
changes. Let us realize, then, our individual res- 
ponsibility, and let us by stedfast integrity uphold 
the true principles of Brotherhood. 



J> 



At the close of the year 1897, amidst the turmoil 
and unrest engendered by the titanic forces of good 
and evil contending for the mastery of the coming 
centuries, are heard the cheery, silvery notes of 
the Christmas bells and the loving voice of the 
Christos — bidding men cease their selfish strife and 
their mad race for power and gain, calling them to 
turn their faces to the Light and unite their hearts 
and voices in one great anthem of Brotherly Love, 
of Peace and Good-will to all creatures; and urging 
us with courage and patience to brace our inner 

102 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 



natures against all that seeks to lead us from the 
true Path, that we may gain greater strength to do 
our whole duty to our fellow-men. 

{From a Christmas Greeting) 



The Cry of the Nations for Peace 

It is a great reflexion upon the mind of a nation 
that there should be war instead of peace, brute 
force instead of the forces of mind and soul. For hu- 
man thought is measureless in its power, and the 
Spiritual Will could bring about universal peace and 
absolutely maintain it, would man but evoke it. 



The nations are praying for peace; but lasting 
peace can never be attained until the spirit of true 
Brotherhood is manifested in the hearts of men. 



We could not expect universal peace at once; 
I know too much of human nature for that. We 
must learn to trust each other first, individuals and 
nations both, and we must broaden our ideas as to 
the meaning of Brotherhood. In all the nations 
today we find great minds bent upon this problem, 

103 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 



sincere men and women who are profoundly in- 
terested in the welfare of the world. But oh, the 
time that is wasted, the brain-oil used, the faculties 
energized to bring about a new order of things in 
the name of peace — while they have lost sight of 
the true, the simple, the only way to do it. 

Brotherhood is the way; that is the keynote of 
the new age. Universal Brotherhood means Universal 
Peace. 



Men may talk of peace, and work for peace, but 
it is mockery unless they try to find peace within 
their own natures. You cannot gain the power to 
adjust civic affairs, let alone international affairs, 
until you begin self-adjustment. 

" But," some judicial mind may say, " how can we 
hold the nations of the world at peace when differ- 
ences exist, seemingly irreconcilable differences ?" 
My reply must be: What holds together a family 
when differences arise? Kinship, the basic love of 
brother for brother that is teeming within its life. 
That will suffice to hold it together always if it has 
grown and evolved in the spirit of justice. Why 
not, then, the larger family of the world? 

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THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

Why is not humanity aroused to its great need 
before disasters come? Why cannot we help each 
other before we are challenged by suffering or by war? 
Why cannot we move out beyond our limitations, in 
true compassion and with true love of justice, and 
ingrain into human life the spirit of Brotherhood? 
Spiritual growth — that is the ideal. It is the only 
guarantee of permanent peace. 

Yet, in spite of enormous limitations, a larger 
work for humanity is being done, the real work is 
truly going on. But it is being accomplished, I be- 
lieve, largely in the silences of life. I believe that 
the great divine Voice of Humanity in its nobler 
aspect is even now trying to reach you, trying to 
attract your vision to the grander life, to broader 
horizons, to more infinite vistas, that you may 
dream, if only for an hour, of better things. 



Let us give way to the eternal processional of the 
Peace-bringers, the currents of Divinity ever ready 
to flow through every man who will take down the 
bars and evoke their passage. We are fixed; they 
change ever. We are mechanical; they are spon- 
taneous. Fatigue is ours; they are immortal, ever- 
born and never-fading. 

105 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

Let us, by playing our part well, evoke the God 
of Peace, that it may brood over our fair land and 
breathe into the hearts of all a larger tolerance and a 
greater love for each other, for all nations and 
all people. 

Not long after she founded the Theosophical 
Society, Madame Blavatsky wrote, "Our theosophi- 
cal brotherhood must strive after the idea of general 
brotherhood throughout humanity; after the es- 
tablishment of universal peace." The primary ob- 
ject of her work was to form a nucleus of Universal 
Brotherhood. The logical result of that must neces- 
sarily be Universal Peace. 



A living wedge is cleaving the darkness of the 
darkest age. We are witnesses to that Compassion 
which is the Light itself. The hour of right action 
is here. 



The crest-wave of spiritual effort! A sublime 
and unselfish purpose will carry us to that high 
point — and then will come the power to love and 
serve in a new, a diviner way. 

106 



To My Brother in Prison 

Don't brand a man as a criminal. Teach him 
that he is a soul and give him a chance. Let him feel 
that someone believes in him. Give him the en- 
couragement that perhaps he has missed all through 
his life, and the lack of which may have helped to 
make him what he is. 



As a Theosophist I believe in the Divinity of Man. 
I believe that the potential God-life is within the 
murderer, the thief, the outcast, and that there lives 
no one who has it not. Why, then, do these types 

exist ? 

Because human nature is dual. In the life of the 
man who has made his mistakes we can see the forces 
of evil, the forces of the lower psychology, gradually 
taking control of that life until a certain point is 
reached — a climax; and then the man who is under 
their sway weakens and falls, in spite of his educa- 
tion, his intelligence or his wealth. Why? Because 
the subtle psychology of ignorance, selfish ambition 
or vice, has broken down and ruined the magni- 
ficent human system which Theosophy tells us is 
the temple of God. 

107 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 



If the hopeless, discouraged men in our prisons 
could be made to realize the potential strength of 
their higher natures, the latent spiritual force that 
lies within them waiting for the call, they would 
have the key to the problems of life. 



Fear the criminal? Not I; he is labeled. It is 
the criminal who is not labeled whom we must look 
out for. We suffer more today from the class of 
wrong-doers who cloak themselves in hypocrisy and 
move among men unsuspected, than from the la- 
beled class. 

Aye, today I would rather trust myself in the 
hands of a murderer than in those of a hypocrite! 
And what discerning person would not? 



What a wonderful thing it would be if the nations 
could be so fired by the needs of those whom we call 
'criminals' that selfish and personal interests could 
be forgotten! Great convocations could be held in 
every city; mothers, fathers and children could gath- 
er together to work in consonance with that Divine 
Law which is ever ready to serve us. What an urge 

108 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

towards higher things humanity would receive from 
such an effort ! Can you not believe that out of such 
great gatherings something new would arise? We 
should understand, to a degree at least, what Christ 
meant when he said to the woman who touched his 
garments, "What is this that hath gone out of me?" 
That is what we must arouse — spiritual sym- 
pathy. We must arouse the mental and spiritual 
force of true compassion, to change the currents of 
retrogression that are now sweeping the best in 
our life away. 

The secret of this work is sympathy with the 
souls of men. 



Somewhere, somehow, at some time, we have 
failed in our duty or we should not have criminals in 
our midst. It is part of the Divine Law that we 
shall have just this result, however, until we awaken 
to our higher duty to our fellow-men. 



The marvel is that with so little knowledge of 
their inner natures, the dual forces that sway them 
now this way and now that, men do not go further 

109 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 



astray. The marvel is, truly, that there is not more 
crime in the world, considering the obscurations on 
every hand in the mental life of man. 



Criminals lose faith in humanity before they lose 
faith in themselves. Why is this the case? It is 
because so many declare them to be 'sinners.' They 
have made the gulf so wide between themselves and 
the so-called 'criminal classes' that the latter make 
their own little world of criminality and become 
psychologized by it. 



Let those who stand forth today as spiritual 
teachers, helpers of humanity, read their consciences, 
study their own natures. Then let them answer at 
the bar of justice as to why so many unfortunates 
drift into prison. . . . And we, in the twentieth 
century, boasting of our civilization, support laws 
that consign them to the scaffold! 



Let us pause and think for a moment. Let us 
imagine that our children were in prison today, that 
our children were to be executed! That is the way 
to bring home to ourselves the truth! 

110 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

The thinking world today is quite ready to admit 
the influence of psychology; to admit that thoughts, 
in a sense, are things, and that the invisible, the in- 
tangible, the seemingly unexpressed, are sometimes 
the most potent in making or marring character. 
This has a great bearing upon questions of prison 
reform, for imprisoned men move and live, month 
after month and year after year, in a psychological 
atmosphere of condemnation and of gloom. Re- 
minded that they are outcasts, shut quite away from 
the world, forgotten and condemned, knowing only 
that the outside world is whirling on, moving on, 
indifferent, they learn to hate humanity for they 
have learned to hate themselves. They do not under- 
stand nor will they see that discipline is necessary 
and is best. They meet little, perhaps, that is sym- 
pathetic or compassionate — few signs indeed that 
we are our brother's keeper. This is not the case in 
every prison, but it is the case with the great majori- 
ty. The marvel to me is that these men do as well 
as they do, for they enter discouraged, and dis- 
couraged they come out. The very fact that so many 
really reform is to me proof of the Divinity of man. 
And yet these men are our brothers, and sometime, 
somewhere along the way, we have done our part 
to encourage them in mistakes. We are pushing 
them into discouragement and crime even today by 

111 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 



our indifference, our apathy, our selfishness, our 
unwillingness to admit that we have any duty 
towards them. 



Let us look ahead ten or fifteen years and picture 
some of our hills and valleys presenting a new 
feature in twentieth century civilization — a some- 
thing that is splendidly remedial; and that is hos- 
pitals for the weaklings, the more unfortunate whose 
unbridled passions have carried them so far beyond 
the pale of society that prison walls close upon 
them. . . . 

There would be gardens and fields, and there 
would be houses and homes. I dare conceive a plan 
by which these prisoners should not be separated 
from their families. They should be . . . cared for 
in such a way that they would understand quite well 
that they were under a certain restraint — but no 
more, perhaps, if we were very thoughtful, than we 
give to certain invalids. They would feel that they 
were in a hospital, in a school, with everything so 
helpful about them there would be no inducement 
to rebel. . . . 

I have had many years' experience in prison work, 
and I know that many of these unfortunates, possibly 
most of them, if properly encouraged and helped, 

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THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

would arouse the strength of their higher nature and 
in the course of time become valuable citizens, some 
of them, ultimately, law-makers, teachers or re- 
formers. How dare we say this could not be ? How 
dare we stultify the possibilities of the soul of man? 
Can we not let the imagination soar as far as this 
into the broad arena of spiritual life? 



If we can parole men now, leaving them with 
everything to contend with, no end of difficulties and 
everything to discourage, surely we could support a 
scheme of Brotherhood reformatories, making them 
a universal expression of love from the hearts of the 
people, and limited by no special system except that 
of the laws of the State. I can feel your hearts 
pulsating with the thought of this picture. The per- 
suasion of my heart and voice, my love for humanity 
and my hope for the unfortunate, certainly should be 
enough to move you to concerted action; and con- 
certed action, when hearts are united, is like one 
great throbbing ocean of spiritual force. 



One of our objects is to revive hope in the hearts 
of those who, through heredity or environment of a 

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THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

disadvantageous character, have suffered injustice. 
Our Brotherhood should have the quality of the sun- 
light; it should shine everywhere, irrespective of 
conditions. Its light should flash behind prison walls 
and bring a new feeling of life to those who are thus 
shut in through their mistakes. It ought to be re- 
membered that the force misdirected by those in 
such unfortunate circumstances would, if properly 
applied, make heroes of them, and that under similar 
conditions many might be in the same position. . . . 
Criticism and condemnation should give place to 
true love and compassion. 



There is a magic touch in the atmosphere of this 
beautiful temple, our Lomaland Temple of Peace. 
We have worked for its highest principles and can 
easily see that it was written in the Higher Law that 
we should be here. It is in the Law that we should 
begin to realize now as never before the sacredness of 
our mission, and the fact that we have the knowledge 
and the power to rend the veil that hides the light 
from humanity. It is in the Law that we should instill 
into the hearts of the sorrowing and hopeless the 
mighty truths which reveal the mysteries of life and 
of death. . . . Picture that touch affecting the 
world. Picture the aching hearts in the prisons 

114 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 



receiving the message not only in words but in that 
deeper way that words cannot express. 



It is those who have passed through the chasten- 
ing processes, the cleansing fires of suffering, who will 
gain spiritual knowledge if they will but search for it. 
It is they who will gain the real victory — the victory 
over the self. It is they who will be the forerunners 
of the new order of ages; light-bringers for genera- 
tions to come. 



When we have more humane laws, when our 
prisons are used as educative and spiritualizing insti- 
tutions, and when capital punishment is abolished, 
then and not until then can we look down the vistas 
of the future with the confidence born of clear vision 
and a sense of duty done. 



And this is really the keynote — the recognition 
of the soul in men, whether they be black or white, 
despairing or hopeful. It is in all men. . . . 

It stands majestic, the core and heart of each 
man's life, the dictator of his destiny. 

115 



Keynotes and Epigrams 

It is the inner life that man must bring forth . He 
must become a conscious part of Universal Law. 

On human shoulders rests the responsibility for 
human progress. 

The path of the mystic is a path of self-mastery 
and service. 

Wherever the heart rules, spirituality is, for the 
heart is the seat of the soul. 

To cater only to mental demands is to forge 
another link on lines of retrogression. 

Selfishness is the line of greatest resistance. Why 
not choose the opposite and easy way? 

Let us question ourselves and ask: Are we 
doubters of, or believers in, the Divine Law? 

We should adjust ourselves to fit like mosaic 
in the great plan of human life. 

No man has a right to say he can do nothing 
for others. 

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THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

No man is made happy by the mere possession 
of objects. 

Let us make our every act the expression of all 
that is divinest in our hearts. 

There must be heroic determination in our hearts 
for continuity of right action. 

Evolution is the law of human life. All have 
evolved differently and each must shine according 
to his light. 

Hypocrisy can have no place where one is trying 
to lead the Theosophic life. 

My aim is to make Theosophy intensely prac- 
tical, intensely serviceable. 

The transition from mere intellectualism to prac- 
tical, philanthropic activity was not effected without 
leaving behind a few who showed their theories 
to be but skin deep. 

The first step to be taken in occultism is the 
practice of unselfishness. 

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THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

Selfishness is the basis of the world's unhappiness. 

If the world is ever to become a better place, we 
must begin to think and act as Divine Souls. 

Make each hour tell for some great mastery in 
character and in life. 

The psychological mistakes of the past are still 
upon us. If we are to drink from the fountain of 
happiness we must learn to know the false from 
the true. 

With all our experience we are as yet but touching 
the fringe of real life; we are but entering the outer 
portals of the real mysteries. 

In studying the mysteries I am sitting at the feet 
of the Higher Law; I am opening the pages of the 
great Book of Human Life. 

Sympathy and toleration are required in every 
direction, for both are necessary to progress. 

We are in soul-essence verily united. We cannot 
break that sacred tie. 

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THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

We are weighed down as a people with the 
errors of the ages. 

The secret of human life in its fulness is self- 
directed effort. 

If we are to help humanity in a new way, we 
must begin to think in a new way. 

Just as in studying music one has to 'place' the 
voice, so in studying Theosophy one has to 'place' 
the mind; that is, one has to find the right mental 
attitude in order to understand. 

A great hope is dawning for humanity. We 
seek to voice that hope. 

Mental obscuration should not be your lot. Wis- 
dom and light belong to you, for they are part of 
the heritage of man. 

The surgeon's knife may hurt, but only that 
healing may come. So the teacher may wound at 
times, but only to the end that spiritual health 
may be established. 

119 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

Waste no more time in argument. Find the 
Self, and wrest from that the message it is waiting 
to impart. 

When the heart is attuned to the sorrow and the 
needs of the world, the mind becomes illumined, and 
wisdom enters in. Those who possess the wisdom 
that is born of compassion, may truly be called 
'inspired.' 

To tear down the life of another is but to destroy 
one's own. 

Are you faultless ? No, but you can strive towards 
faultlessness. Not your act but your motive is 
weighed in the scales of Divine Justice. 

Make a beginning towards the Theosophic life! 
Take the first step. All will follow in natural order 
and at the right time. Make a beginning, therefore, 
and why not make it now? 

Prayer is aspiration, and true aspiration is prayer. 
The life that is lighted by it is a constant service of 
devotion, a burning altar-flame. 



120 



SECTION VI 



^oman anb tfje 
CfjeosiopJjtc Some 



The altar is Woman, Gautama! 

— Khandogya Upanishad 



To the Awakening Woman 

THE world is starving for the psychological touch 
of something higher from women, and that 
'something higher' can only spring from an 
inner devotional attitude of mind. Without devo- 
tion we cannot be real women. 

The devotional spirit ought to be more, cultivated 
by women, for it opens a path to the soul. Men are 
waiting for it unconsciously; they are longing to see 
it manifest in women's lives, and when it is so mani- 
fest they feel it and respond to its appeal, even 
without a word being said. Others feel it also, and 
our little children do. 



The devotional keynote in woman's life makes 
home a sacred place, for it sanctifies every hour of 
the day. When this wonderful spirit plays into and 
over the life, you are buoyed up, inspired: nothing 
is impossible; nothing is hard; nothing is too much. 
The 'wave' carries you along, so to speak, and real 
magic is often the result. In depending solely on 
the intellectual life woman is starving herself, her 
children and her home, for she cannot convey to 
those who love her the heart-touch which their 
souls are calling for and should have. 

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THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 



Theosophy has a special and unique message 
for the women of the world. 



Woman, the Reconciler, the world's Peace- 
maker, holds the key to all the future in her hand. 



Men can never find their true places in life until 
women have found theirs. They can never strike 
the true notes in their natures until women touch 
the key. 



I hold that woman should stand to man as the 
Inspirer and the Helper. I should like to see women 
shine in this twentieth century; I think they have 
a great deal to do. 



It is the inner life, the heart-life, that woman 
must seek and strive to realize, with all the courage 
and soul-determination of her being. 



I plead for the cultivation of the Spiritual Will 
that lies back of every heart and mind. I plead with 

124 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 



woman to awaken to a realization of her divine po- 
tentiality to shape her own life and the lives of others 
to divine results. I plead with her to awaken to her 
mission in the world. 



Woman is more mystical than man; she lives 
more in the heart. Her emotional nature, however, 
becomes a source of weakness if not governed under- 
standing^. Could she harness and control that, new 
doors would open in her life continually; she would 
journey on an ever-ascending path of experience 
and spiritual growth. 



What is woman's mission? It is to find Herself, 
and this means the release from bondage of the 
Real Woman within. 



The greatest work that woman can do today is 
to become so sweetly feminine, so sweetly spiritual 
and strong, so grandly compassionate and helpful, 
that she will hold the whole human family in her 
keeping. She will make the home her altar, her 
kingdom; and from that altar, from that kingdom, 
shall be sent out the gospel of life to all people. 

125 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 



We do not want any brain-mind work in such a 
reformation. We want Divine Fire, the Divine Life, 
the splendid, royal warriorship of men and women. 
That is what we want and must have. 



My effort is not to give you a carefully prepared 
scientific address, with its data, its statistics, and its 
appeal to the brain-mind. No! My effort is to 
arouse your enthusiasm, to awaken in you a burning 
desire to know more of your Real Selves that you 
may better do your real duties. My effort is to evoke 
the inner and unrecognised part of you — the superb 
Divinity within you, the Soul — that you may step 
forth as positive, strong, royal examples of right 
action. 

I have no receipts for you, no sentimentality, no 
crutches for you to lean upon. There is but one 
issue here tonight, and it is this: shall the spiritual or 
the temporal woman rule ? And my aim is to evoke 
from within you your own Divinity, that something 
which will give you the power to overcome all diffi- 
culties. Once you have evoked this unconquerable 
power, which is yourself in very truth, you will 
find that half the difficulties in your life will have 
disappeared, and that the other half can be met 

126 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 



with a courage so royal, so superb, that you can 
actually transform them into helps and victories. 
{From a Lecture to Women Only, in a series delivered early in 1911) 



I cannot conceive how we are ever to adjust and 
redeem humanity, or how we are ever to make the 
home an ideal place of love and harmony, until 
women understand themselves. For only when in pos- 
session of this priceless knowledge — the knowledge 
of the Self — is it possible for either man or woman to 
develop and perfect that symmetry which is the ideal. 



Woman has been slowly losing her way along the 
ages, beyond question — though the same may be 
said of man. But the obscurations and stumbling- 
blocks in woman's path have been many and great 
and have brought into her life an unrest that few 
men realize. 

I believe that men know very little about the 
inner life of woman, for unless man is acquainted with 
himself, with his essential Divinity and his possi- 
bilities, how can he judge? On the other hand, if 
woman is unacquainted with herself, and in her turn 
knows not her essential Divinity, how can she under- 

127 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 



stand life, or duty? How can she become the ideal 
woman that her heart is pleading with her to be? 



False education and the errors of ages have sur- 
rounded woman with environments that are un- 
natural and unreal; and these in their turn have 
crippled her genius and forced her into a life that 
is not hers. 

Woman must 'know herself for this is her true 
mission. She must unveil the mysteries of her being, 
and in the unveiling she will become transformed 
physically, mentally and spiritually, elevated to a 
higher expression of womanhood. She will no longer 
be limited to a small mental life, for her soul would 
not bear it. Her aspirations will be so high, her ideals 
so much higher, and her knowledge so much greater, 
that she will broaden her views, her life, her sphere of 
usefulness. Thus we should have not only the ideal 
woman, but the international woman. One nation 
would not be enough for her. She would hold the 
whole world in her love. 



There is being enacted on the mental plane today 
a great battle in woman's life, a terrible struggle. 

128 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 



It may not be written openly in history, but it is 
recorded in the atmosphere of the world and tells 
its story in the silence. 



If woman is to attain the dignity of ideal woman- 
hood, she must cultivate her femininity. She was 
born a woman and she must be a woman, in the 
truest sense. Contrasts between man and woman 
exist, yet there is a balance — the heart-yearnings 
perhaps different in each, yet both reaching towards 
the same goal; their intellectual life somewhat dif- 
ferent, developed under different conditions and en- 
vironments, yet this too reaching towards the same 
consummation and achievement. 

These contrasts hold within themselves, in the 
deep undercurrents of human life, a superb and 
glorious harmony. Woman in her true place, hand 
in hand with man in his, would bring about a new 
order of things — a new life, a resurrection of the 
spirit, a shining forth of the inner, higher, eternal 
qualities of the human soul. 



Both men and women come from the same Divine 
Source; they are seeking the same goal, are part of 
the same universal life, are guided by the same uni- 

129 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 



versal laws of being. Outward aspects are different 
in each, and duties are different; but the hunger for 
truth is the same in both, the Spiritual Will the same. 



The first thing a woman has to learn, when she 
studies the laws governing her life, is that there is a 
negative and a positive quality in human nature, and 
that negative women are always imposed upon. 
They are for ever sacrificing their lives to no bene- 
ficial result, for ever bearing children in disharmony, 
who must later suffer just as they have done. For 
there is no balance in their lives; there is no justice. 

On the other hand, when a woman begins to live 
the higher life, and live it positively, forcefully and 
fully, the very atmosphere of her presence silences 
the meanest and most selfish efforts of her opposers. 



You cannot make over the world in a moment, 
nor can you change woman's life in a moment. 
Realizing the mistakes that have been made all down 
the ages, therefore, and that Theosophy is the ex- 
planation and the key, let woman become acquainted 
with herself. Let her not become so anxious to 
succeed, however, that she loses her balance, and 
let her above all remember that the crucifixions 

130 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 



in human life have often proved to be its blessings. 
Let the woman who finds herself unhappily 
married, or suffering from conditions brought about 
through marriage, remember that these things came 
about because she was not acquainted with herself. 
Had she possessed the divine knowledge of Theo- 
sophy when the time for choice drew near; had she 
known how to accentuate in her life the positive 
quality, the power of intuition — the great spiritual 
factor in life — would have illumined her mind. It 
would have brought to her a knowledge not only of 
her weakness but her strength. 



Let woman become so in love with her Higher, 
Diviner Self, that she will feel the warrior-spirit 
developing and growing within her hour by hour and 
day by day. The shadows that hang over her, the 
fear, the unrest, the timidity and the dread, will 
pass away. 

jt 

In studying themselves women should first of all 
study their nature in its duality — the play and inter- 
play of the higher and the lower self. This step 
taken, they should then search out their greatest 
weaknesses, as revealed in the light of such study, 

131 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

and courageously begin to overcome them. This 
initiates a great process of purification, and with a 
devotional attitude of mind behind the self-analysis, 
a double work is going on: an inner work and 
an outer. 

We are too prone to rest content within the 
little limited circle of what we consider our neces- 
sities, and lose sight of the spiritual meaning of our 
lives. It is a common human failing. 



How many can analyse themselves, or bring about 
a living unity between themselves and their life? 
And yet the knowledge enabling one to do this is just 
what Theosophy gives. Far too many live in their 
puny prejudices and their wants. 'What I want' is 
the mantram of civilization at the present day — so 
rarely 'what I need' or 'what civilization demands.' 



At night it is helpful to go over the day in 
thought: it is the old neophyte way. You will 
suffer in noting lapses and omissions; but if your 
motive is pure and unselfish you will learn and 
pass on. And then will flash in upon you a sense 

132 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 



of the nearness of the Higher Self — and ere you 
know it a new life will be born. 



If you could only know what a companion the 
Higher Self can be! It is a Presence, a mystic 
Presence. The realization of it depends of course 
upon the degree of your evolution; but I have 
nothing which you could not have. Its companion- 
ship is so real, so wonderful, so royally supreme. 
Once you have found it, you never can lose it again. 
Just before retiring — that is the time. 



Even among very diverse types of women the 
same thing is often lacking in each, namely, the 
strong Spiritual Will. This should be the 'power 
behind the throne' in every human being, but in 
most women as well as in most men, through lack of 
understanding and of exercise, it is too weak to 
amount to a real force in directing the life. 

While many are 'good' because of their fear of 
Mrs. Grundy, they are not forcefully, constructively, 
spiritually good, because they know nothing of the 
Spiritual Will. Many too are cramped and limited 
mentally. . . . 

Until aroused to some understanding of the 

133 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 



Spiritual Will and thus set upon the right track — 
which is that of self-directed evolution, spiritual self- 
reliance, in a word — woman cannot 'know herself; 
nor can she realize who or what she is, or know what 
part she is to play in life. She cannot touch even 
the fringe of spiritual truth. 



I believe that one of woman's greatest weaknesses 
is the fact that she does not discriminate, often, be- 
tween true sympathy and false. And false sym- 
pathy is one of the greatest of all stumbling-blocks in 
the soul's path — one's own path or that of another. 
To make this weak point strong, woman must study 
her nature in its duality , for without the knowledge 
of dual human nature which Theosophy gives, one 
is often helpless to discriminate between the pull of 
the emotions, which disintegrate and exhaust, and 
the urge of true sympathy, which is supremely 
spiritual in its power. 

Sympathy is always imaginative, bringing to us 
true pictures and true knowledge of the work of aid 
which lies before us. Sympathy makes human 
minds so plastic that words are hardly needed to find 
out the cause of another's trouble. Sympathy trans- 

134 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

lates itself into action almost without the aid of 
human speech. 

<*> 

When woman has reached a point of understand- 
ing, she will receive a clearer knowledge of duty and 
will hold it more sacred than it is now held even by 
the most devoted. Unless she is eternally vigilant, 
cultivating discrimination . . . between real and 
merely supposed duty, she is bound to lose her way. 



The whole world seems to be going mad over 
'my rights,' 'my city's rights,' 'my country's rights.' 
But what about my duty? 

I hold that the injustice which is now so marked 
in human life is based on the misuse of these two 
words, 'my rights.' Absence of real unselfishness 
and of love for duty is so marked that duty as a fact 
and an ideal has not the place it should have in the 
hearts and minds of men. 

We cannot have the illumination that comes 
from the Higher Self without being constantly de- 
voted to duty. It is the cheeriest, dearest, most 
splendid, most enticing companion we can con- 
ceive of — Duty! 

135 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

Do not be satisfied with your home nor with your 
city and its laws until you have set in motion cur- 
rents of thought in your own life that will tell for the 
uplift and refashioning of that home, that community 
or that city. Do not be satisfied until you are an 
active, potent factor in making the laws of your 
city. If you cannot actually frame these laws you 
can inspire them, and you can be powerful in pro- 
testing against any that restrict the true privileges 
of man. 

Women can no longer fold their hands and say, 
"I cannot touch unpleasant subjects; they do not 
concern me." Nay! Whatever menaces the purity 
of human life or the innocence of the youth concerns 
women deeply and must be touched upon by them, 
in thought and feeling both, before the outer reforms 
that the few are working to secure can be built 
upon a basis that is enduring. 



I hold that if women were rightly placed today — 
or if they had rightly placed themselves, realizing 
their deeper potentialities, their divine possibilities, 
and their sacred mission — the world would not be 
so 'all awry.' There would be real co-operation 

136 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

between women and men, a better understanding of 
each other's natures, and a new line of higher living 
for both. This must come about if the dream of 
world-reconstruction is to be made a living fact. 

In endeavoring to urge upon women a profounder 
recognition of all that pertains to the unfolding of 
their higher natures ... I hold that were a real 
effort to be made towards this end by men and 
women working together, the twentieth century 
would mark the beginning of a great spiritual uplift 
on absolutely new lines. A few noble souls have 
stepped into their true positions, but the majority 
have not; the majority are still bound by conven- 
tion: satisfied with things that should not satisfy and 
dissatisfied with things that build for progress. 



The teachings of Theosophy contain the key to 
the freedom of woman as well as the freedom of 
man. Pure Theosophy, understood by an aspiring 
woman, gives her the key to that knowledge by 
which she can transform her life. She would not 
study long before she would realize her power "to 
shape all things for righteousness." 

137 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 



True love is Christ-love. It is that part of 
woman's nature which lifts her above the ordinary 
levels and fills the soul with a compassion and a 
power of helpfulness such as words cannot describe. 



Overcome! That is the song the Gods would 
sing to you women and to all the world. Learn to 
overcome and learn to love! 



Build Spiritual Altars in the Home 

Here is another problem: the home-life of today. 
Are the mothers and fathers, the educators and the 
progressive minds of the age, satisfied with the home- 
life of the twentieth century? Are we satisfied? Do 
we not realize that under the present regime future 
generations can have little of the greater hope? Are 
not crimes increasing, crimes unspeakable? Are we 
not reaping, day by day, the harvest of our acts of 
omission in the past, our failure to make our home- 
life what it should be, all along the way? 



The question naturally arises: what can bring 
about a change for the better? What factors can be 

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THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

introduced that will readjust our home-life as a 
nation — for there are sublime exceptions in individu- 
al life — and bring it nearer to perfection? 

Theosophy answers by declaring that men and 
women should study the laws of life and the responsi- 
bilities of fatherhood and motherhood even before 
marriage. Home should be acclaimed as the cen- 
ter from which the higher life of the nations is 
to spring. 



Says Theosophy: Build spiritual altars in the 
home. Let parents spend as much time in accen- 
tuating the spiritual laws of life as they do in caring 
for worldly needs and pleasures, the impermanent 
things of life. 

How inspiring is the picture of a home that has 
been touched by the teachings of Theosophy! I 
open the door on such a one, and before me I see 
little children gathered around the home altar, grasp- 
ing even in their childhood the great teachings needed 
for the building and fashioning of character, being 
taught the divine laws governing us all. I linger on 
the threshold of such a home, for I feel in its very 
atmosphere that the Kingdom of Heaven on earth 
has already begun. 

139 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 



In this great reconstructive effort, the question 
is often asked, Where shall we begin ? But does not 
the home pre-eminently afford us opportunities for 
living the grander life? Can we not through the 
home bring more quickly than otherwise something 
new and uplifting into the world? 



If spiritual life were the prevailing influence our 
homes would already be sanctified; for man, once 
convinced of his power, his spiritual strength and his 
responsibility to his fellows, would walk like a god 
among them, and his home-life would be blessed. 

Woman would be there, too, in noble womanhood, 
wifehood, motherhood, a lovely expression of the 
Diviner Self. 

And what think you of the children of two such 
as are here described? Is there not new hope in the 
picture of their possibilities; great and splendid en- 
couragement for the whole human race? 



Humanity needs health, physical, mental and 
moral; and children born under right conditions, 
physically strong and well, and spiritually in the at- 
mosphere of the real harmonies of life, receptive to 
that light which was shed upon the life under pre- 

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THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

natal conditions — such as these cannot but become 
splendid vehicles for spiritual development, temples 
of the inner, living God. 

Physically balanced, there will be innate, not 
only tendencies towards the devotional life, but an 
intellectual aspiration for all that is high and noble. 

Such children would grow day by day in spiritual 
life under the guidance of parents who had placed 
themselves in harmony with the Higher Law, and 
such parents, in their aspiration to serve their little 
ones and pass down to later ages a noble expression 
of childhood, manhood and womanhood, would be 
building not merely for the present but for all time. 
Perpetuating their ideals in their children, such 
home-builders would begin to make real the Kingdom 
of Heaven upon earth. 

The charm and fascination of the picture lies in 
the fact that 'the Kingdom of Heaven is within.' 
Storms may be without, trials, poverty, struggles, 
tragedies, disappointments of all kinds; but how- 
ever many they may be or however great their force, 
they cannot daunt. Within is Heaven, reflected in 
that home — an expression of the Higher Law, the 
Christos-spirit, the life of the real man, the real 
woman, with woman in her true place and man in 
his, as the Higher Law intended them to be. Is not 
the picture fascinating? Best of all, is it not true? 

141 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

I hold that within twenty-five years there will be 
a better general understanding of marriage, for the 
time is near when men and women shall declare true 
marriage to be a creation of the Divine or Higher 
Law, and the bond of the civil law but a form for 
purposes of protection. Wherever a marriage exists, 
not sanctioned by this Divine Power, where souls are 
not united spiritually and filled with the highest ideals 
and the purest love, there is no real marriage at all. 

With this conception as a guide, it could not be 
long before those who have the common interests of 
the world at heart would find new light and would 
live in accordance with their responsibilities. Mothers 
who now follow the usual method of 'disposing* of 
their daughters would no longer encourage marriage 
until their daughters possessed self-knowledge, until 
they knew themselves in their duality — their divine 
and womanly strength and their weakness. 

One can touch upon the subject of woman and 
marriage at present in only a fragmentary way. But 
there are profound mysteries connected with it, and 
could we study them rightly we could begin to 
build a new world. 

J* 

I find myself so often moving back from the 
outer world into the inner world of the home, appeal- 

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THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

ing in the silence to the mothers, daughters and 
wives to do their part more fully to bring about a 
new state of affairs. If I seem to accentuate home- 
life and woman's responsibility to it, it is because the 
vast majority of women are or may become active 
factors in creating that life, somehow, somewhere or 
at some time. If not wives or mothers, they are 
sisters, daughters, foster-mothers to little ones need- 
ing their care, ministers and companions to the 
aged. Home becomes their sacred charge. 



There is grave need of readjustment in the life of 
nations all over the world, and if women could take 
up this work in relation to the home-life which they 
touch at one or another point, — not selfishly, but in 
the interest of suffering humanity — the results 
would be more far-reaching than they dream. That 
done, the world would soon respond to the influence 
of a new psychology, the psychology of the Higher 
Self. 



I hold that if the women of America — for the 
moment let us leave unconsidered the women of 
other nations — would take up this work of spiritual 

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THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

reconstruction in their lives and in their home-life; 
if they would actually believe themselves to be 
appealed to by suffering humanity to refashion and 
remodel human life, they could do it. 

They would commence in the home, of course, if 
duty had placed them there — for woman's place is 
where duty calls, wherever that may be — and there 
they would work as never before to fashion a center 
of beauty and kindliness and peace, a place of joy, a 
center of spiritual education. And ere long the 
psychological waves of the 'Heart Doctrine' really 
lived would be so forceful that husbands would gladly 
give the moral support needed for the full accomplish- 
ment, the consummation, of such a work. 

It is really very simple, and while there are 
many perplexing problems, it is only necessary for 
wives and mothers to concentrate their minds upon 
this effort, in order to take the first step. I have 
seen all this accomplished, believe me, both in our 
own land and in others. But I see it most of all 
upon the hills of Lomaland, for there the great 
ideals of the Theosophic life are being worked out. 
There the true economics of home and of human 
life in general are being studied and applied; and 
there both men and women are refashioning their 
lives for the building of a New Order of Ages. 



144 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 



Reconstruction is the keynote of the hour; but 
above all, we must reconstruct the home. It must 
be regenerated, purified, redeemed; and the secret 
of its redemption is the Theosophic life. 



To build the nation righteously we must build 
our homes sacredly, and those who work towards 
that end should study the 'Heart Doctrine' and live 
it. There is need of more light for the people, but it 
cannot be found until the sacredness of fatherhood 
and motherhood, and the higher meaning of brother- 
hood, are better appreciated and understood. 



Many a man has failed because the home failed 
to become what his heart needed most. Many a 
woman has failed because the one whom she loved 
failed to give her what her heart longed for. And 
yet the one thing necessary to bring about in home- 
life a harmony and peace unspeakable is — knowledge. 

Without knowledge we cannot live understand- 
ing^ ; if we are to serve our fellows we must 
know ourselves and we must know the laws of life, 
that we may build the home morally and spiritually, 
fashioning every thought and act in harmony with 
these laws. 

145 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

But it is impossible and would be most unjust to 
say that woman is to be blamed, or that man must 
be. It is the unnatural conditions in general human 
life today that hem women in and hold them down, 
causing unrest and consequent unhappiness. These 
conditions react upon man; the unrest thus created 
reacts in its turn upon woman, and the combined 
influence of their mutual unrest and doubt falls 
upon the children, the home — and the nation. 



The great world-war has ended and the slaughter 
of brother by brother has ceased, but the violation 
of Theosophic principles is still going on, and more 
than any other institution, excepting possibly that 
of religion, the home-life of the world is in the 
balance. 

J> 

The human family is moving towards the realiza- 
tion of great truths, and in this connexion we should 
commence to build on broader and more unselfish 
lines of effort; we should cultivate a divine courage, 
and we should begin in the home, with a sacred com- 
prehension and a consequent pure living of the 
married state. We should make that home the altar 
of purity, and endeavor to accentuate what Theo- 

146 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

sophy teaches — that where two are joined together 
in the sacred ties of marriage, no power on earth 
can separate them. 

<*> 

Home-temples, under the benign teachings of 
Theosophy, will become schools for the parents as 
well as for the children. 



Were all homes what they should be, there would 
be no need for Raja-Yoga schools. 



A true home is a light upon the pathway of the 
world's life. 



When the homes of the world are based on justice 
and a higher type of love we shall have no more dis- 
heartening national and international problems. 



In the guardianship of her home the Theosophic 
mother would stand in eternal protest against the 
invasion of it by men and women such as are some- 
times entertained. However far-fetched my state- 

147 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

ment may seem today, it will ere long be recognised 
by science that there exists a psychological force 
that is intangible and invisible yet stronger than 
words can paint. How carefully we guard our 
children against whooping-cough and measles, and 
yet how thoughtlessly they are exposed to psychologi- 
cal influences which are a thousand times more fatal! 

One of these days a new X-ray will be turned 
upon that psychological force of evil and reveal it to 
the world. Then how you mothers will shrink from 
some of those whom now you entertain ! 

Can anyone say that these things are not true? 
If Christ were here tonight, would he take exception 
to a single word of this? Is it not time, therefore, 
to apply Christ-principles to the home, and make 
an altar in that sacred place? 



And then the great question of intuition: in one 
of its aspects intuition is the indescribable feeling 
that sometimes comes to warn one that dangers are 
ahead. Animals have it on their own plane; but 
why cannot women claim and use it too? Yet with 
rare exceptions they do not possess this in the degree 
that is their right. In the majority it is so obscured 

148 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 



that nameless dangers may lie at the very doors of 
their homes, may surround the young lives of their 
children, and they never see them, never sense them, 
till too late ! 



Let the coming generation feel the preciousness 
of human life, the splendor and the royalty of it. 
Let the children be imbued with a love for the higher 
harmonies, and a distaste for anything that would 
mar the charm and sacredness of home. What 
power and what enlightenment would then come 
into the lives of the parents! Let them make the 
home a center of all that is true and ennobling in life. 
Make it beautiful and attractive, even though it be 
simple. Make music, art and literature an active 
part of its life. Parents living in such an atmosphere 
would guard the home in a new way. 



I am pleading for the home! Let us have more 
music there — more music evenings and all the 
time. It will bring into home-life a new and potent 
spirit of harmony. It will mean a new life for all, 
but especially for the children. 

149 



Child and Mother 

If women only knew their power, what mighty 
things they might fashion in this land of freedom, 
for they are the mothers of men. Let them read, 
study, think, as they rock the cradle. Let them 
spend less time over their fears and troubles and 
more on the great problems of life, which their little 
ones must someday face. Let them live as though 
they were divine and eternal. 



I wonder how many parents think much about 
the real responsibilities of life, how many understand 
the real sacredness of marriage and that most sacred 
thing of all: the ushering of souls into the world! 



Home is a great school of experience. It is the. 
place of affection, the center where children should 
be born and reared in harmony with the Higher Law. 
Too long have mothers looked for light outside them- 
selves, apart from their divine natures, forgetting 
the Christos, the mystic Christ within. 

Let us picture two people who are united in a 
comprehension of the Christos-spirit, and let these 
represent for us the ideal father and mother. Let us 

150 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

imagine a young life springing into action from such 
a union, a tiny bud of unfolding possibilities sprung 
from their superb and divine aspirations, and which 
is to grow to maturity under the protection of these 
two souls who know that they are the temples of 
the living God. 

That little child — a little unfolding, plastic life 
— would be taught from infancy to know no fear. 
From its earliest moments it would be taught self- 
reliance and responsibility. Such parents would not 
play with their child as though it were a doll: they 
would handle it as though it were a tender flower. 
They would look upon it as something that could be 
trained for the weal or woe of humanity. They would 
look upon its tiny body as the temple of God, nourish- 
ing it according to its needs, wisely, religiously. 

When a child so cared for reaches years of under- 
standing and steps out into the world, it will know its 
divine responsibility for it will have been fashioned 
in the image of God. Its physical life will have been 
so wisely built that it will be the worthy home of the 
Christ-mind. It will work out its own life, and 
divinely, for such a child would be already armed for 
life's battles. It would be a monument to the devo- 
tion of mother and father. 

Let us imagine this child to be a girl, a tender, 
delicate, poetic life — for women sometimes carry 

151 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

the impress of the poetic in a very special way. Let 
us imagine that it has been given the best possible 
environment and that it has grown up under the 
touch of the sweet and heroic in parenthood. Is it 
possible that when such a girl steps out into life the 
ordinary inducements to selfish action that are of- 
fered young women, as the world goes, would be a 
temptation to her? Nay! As a soul she would know 
her true position and would be armed with wisdom. 
She would know her own nature in its duality, and 
the true meaning of life. She would have been taught 
the sacredness of that love which may be neither 
abused nor misused, as is the travesty too often 
called by that divine name today. 



The currents of thought at work throughout the 
whole organism of humanity are registered on the 
minds of all as on a sensitive plate. In every 
country there are thousands concentrating their 
minds on the injustice under which they suffer, and 
in no way does this condition of things affect the 
world more deeply than by prenatal influence. 



If in the case of an assassin, for example, we could 
trace the inner development of the nature, we might 

152 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

find the real cause for his crime in the little uncor- 
rected mistakes of childhood, in seemingly unim- 
portant habits, which grew and grew until they 
became a part of the very life. 

The ultimate cause might even be found, could 
we go back to it, in an indifferent or careless thought 
on the part of the mother during the prenatal period 
of her child's life. . . . The sins and crimes of the 
world are really commenced in the cradle. 



It would be absurd for me to say that children are 
'born in sin,' for Theosophy declares that all are 
Divine and that birth is the door through which the 
Immortal Self must enter to gain experience. But 
I do say that they can be, and that they often are, 
psychologized in weakness on the negative side of 
their natures, even before birth, by loving but un- 
wise mothers. 

Let your children learn to face real issues in their 
childhood. Let them be taught something besides 
the love of pleasure, love of the dollar and of ease. 
Let us bring home to them new lessons, for they are 
hungering for them ; they are seeking the light; they 
are pleading all the time in their silent way for more 

153 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

knowledge. They are your children, yours, and yet 
you are letting them move on in the shadows. They 
love you in a certain way, but how much do they 
know of your real virtues, how much of the nobler 
side of your nature, of that side which is not yet ex- 
pressed? Is not your duty to them plain? 



The personal desires that sometimes work in- 
sidiously in the minds of parents affect the rising 
generation. The narrow grooves of thought through 
which mothers often seek to lay down the law as to 
what occupations their children should follow, draw 
them away from the true purpose of their lives and 
hamper the expression of the divine principle with- 
in them. 

There can be no question about the mother's 
love, but sometimes by this very means mistakes are 
made which affect the minds of the young so materi- 
ally that their power for good becomes dwarfed. . . . 
But when, without selfish ideas of personal advance- 
ment, the mother follows her intuition, the results 
on her family are vastly different. 

When all these influences are considered, a point 
is reached where no further light is possible unless 
the idea of rebirth is understood. How differently 
parents would act if they fully realized that their 

154 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

little ones came "trailing clouds of glory" from 
a great past, traveling down the ages to the present 
time! 

The mother who passes through the initiations — 
for they are that — of her babe's prenatal life, is 
lifting up a light unto the world. 



'Keep your light burning,' and your children 
will find the way. 

Let there be no more temporizing, no more play- 
ing of hide-and-go-seek with the dual forces of your 
nature! Find the soul! Place it in command of the 
life ! Truly, if you will do this the freedom that you 
long for — a mystic, interior freedom — shall be 
yours, it may be without the utterance of a word, 
with less than the lifting of a hand. Some are far 
from the portals of spiritual victory, it is true, but 
many are much nearer than they dream. All they 
need is a little more trust in themselves, a little more 
reliance on that Center of Strength that lies within, 
more perseverance and courage in pushing ahead. 

155 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

Woman has it within her power to become a 
pillar of spiritual strength, and the great rising 
Temple of Humanity is waiting in the silence of 
things for just the support that she is so qualified 
to give. Shall she therefore step forth in the royal 
dignity of the Higher Self and take up the duty of 
the hour — or fail ? She must do one or the other> 
for there is no possibility of standing still. Mighty 
currents of disintegration are sweeping into the 
heart-life of humanity at the present time, created 
by the prevailing spirit of unrest and in their turn 
creating more unrest, and those who will not enter 
the great divine currents of unselfishness and love 
will be swept down and away. Disintegration of 
character along most unexpected lines is one of the 
signs of the times, and just because of this, Theo- 
sophy, with its sublime keynote of Reconstruction 
supremely meets the need of the hour. 



The dawn of better things is so near! Keep the 
light burning in your hearts, and like watchers on 
the Hills of Peace you will see the first faint gleams 
of the New Day ere you dream the day is at hand. 



156 



SECTION VII 



&aja#oga Bfoeate 
anb tfje Cfitfo 



Listen to the Salutation of the Dawn! 
— From the Sanskrit 



The Cycle of the Children 

ANEW cycle has begun! It is the cycle of the 
children. In them is the promise of the future, 
and one has only to look into the faces of the 
little ones to watch the new traits, the new powers 
that are unfolding in their lives — and especially in 
this youngest, yet the seat of the oldest, civilization 
on earth [America] — to know that if we but do our 
part the record of the twentieth century shall be 
one of brotherhood, peace, and joy. 

It is impossible to gage the significance of the 
present time or to realize what is in store for hu- 
manity during the next hundred years, merely from 
our own experience and from recorded history. For 
this is no ordinary time; it is not simply the cul- 
minating point of the past hundred years, but of 
thousands of years; the night of centuries has 
passed, and with the new dawn comes the return of 
memories and powers and possibilities of an age 
long past. 

The soul of man still cries out, the darkness is 
still so close about him that he knows not the dawn 
is so near. But those who have climbed to the hill- 
tops have seen the glow in the eastern sky and the 
rays of golden light in the heavens; and with the 
suddenness of the break of day in the tropics, in the 

159 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 



twinkling of an eye, the light will come, the scales 
fall from our eyes, and we shall see — not in the un- 
certain gloom of night, but in the glorious sunlight. 

As the light of day scatters the shadows and the 
powers of darkness, so will the effulgence of the new 
cycle break through the dark places of ignorance, 
prejudice and unbrotherliness in the age now so 
swiftly passing. The great heroes of old will once 
more return to earth, the great musicians, painters, 
poets, wise statesmen, lovers of the race, will again 
take up their loving task, and the earth shall blossom 
as a garden. The ancient wisdom taught in the 
sacred mysteries will be revived; the earth, the 
air, the ether, all nature, will reveal their secrets to 
those who have prepared themselves through puri- 
fication and by service to humanity. 

Such is the outlook into the future. To measure 
it, go back to the glory of ancient Egypt and to the 
yet older civilization and vaster achievements of 
ancient America. Such a future awaits us and our 
children, and if we are faithful, shall be ours in the 
new time when, after a brief night of death, we return 
to take up our work again upon earth. 



The children! The children! What mighty 
powers do they evoke in the hearts of men ! We must 

160 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

take them into our hearts as tender, budding souls 
to be nurtured with the sweet breath of truth, with 
rare discrimination for their souls' unfoldment. 

Let us approach children in a new way — not 
merely as 'the sweetest little things on earth, and 
all mine!' — but as a sacred, divine something sent 
us by the Supreme, as sacred charges intrusted to our 
care. And along this line let us refashion all our 
thoughts and acts. 

Our children are pleading with us in the silence 
for a higher manifestation of soul-life, and because 
we have lived longer than they in this earth-life, if 
for no other reason, we should have a record white as 
snow to meet them with. As the little child-eyes 
look into our own, let them see the soul therein and 
feel its touch upon our hands, its speech in our every 
word. We must not merely play a part; we must 
be that part. 

J> 

The Christos-spirit is within us all, but unless we 
live on broader lines, conscious of the divine power 
of duty to broaden the understanding and the life, 

161 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

truly we are losing our way. Therefore I say: 
Broaden the path for the children ! Strew their way 
with flowers of truth! Stand in protest against any, 
thought or act that would impede their progress, 
and in time this city will be like heaven — for the 
Kingdom of Heaven will be here. 

Are even the best home environments all that 
they should be? Do we not well know that nearly 
always there exist some conditions in the home that 
are adverse to the child's best interests? Children 
are imitators and carry a lasting impression of the 
knowledge gained, and the habits acquired, through 
home environment and example. It is idle for 
parents to attempt to teach their children self-control 
until they themselves have become examples of 
patience, firmness, poise and forbearance, until in 
their daily lives they are accentuating the virtues 
they preach to their children. 



Children are often wiser than we know, often more 
observant than their elders. They are keenly recep- 
tive and responsive to what they hear, see and feel, 
either of good or evil. Intensely sensitive in their 
childish natures, they are much more affected by the 

162 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

mental atmosphere in which they live than is general- 
ly recognised. They suffer beyond description from 
discord and unhappiness in the home. They miss 
the inspiration which their hearts crave and which 
would come from happy and harmonious surround- 
ings. Many a boy and girl have gone the wrong way, 
unconscious of the results which would follow, be- 
cause deprived of that tender, soul-nurturing care 
that belonged to them by right and which their 
parents should have given. 

Our children may be the saviors of the world. I 
know the truth is cradled in their hearts. Believing 
in Reincarnation as I do, I know that they have re- 
turned to us with the sorrows of the ages written 
upon their hearts. Watch little children in their 
quiet moments; look into their innocent, wonderful 
eyes, and tell me if you cannot find more truth there- 
in than in all the sermons you ever heard. And this 
is why I declare that just so far as we limit their 
knowledge of higher things, just so far as we hem 
them in mentally by dogmatic teaching, we are 
committing crimes, crimes! 

A glimpse into the student life at Point Loma 
will show that even the smallest children have be- 

163 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

gun to love duty and to cultivate a spirit of help- 
fulness. 

Jk 

Cultivate a sense of spiritual honor in the child. 
Keep its little mind filled with little duties, for 
idleness destroys soul-life. 



The secret of happy childhood is not self-indul- 
gence, however tempered and refined, but happy, 
wholesome, rational self-control. 



Self-control! It can be taught to the babe in the 
cradle. It can be ingrained into character even be- 
fore birth by the mother's own picture, kept con- 
stantly before her, of the ideal life. A moving pic- 
ture in spiritual life we might call it, with mother's 
aspiration and her questionings all along the way: 
Who am I? Why am I here? What is my higher 
duty? Why must I strive for self-control? 

Let mother question thus and immediately there 
follows introspection: she begins to put her mental 
house in order. She goes back to her childhood in 
thought, perhaps, and comes to realize wherein lack 
of self-control has been the undoing of her nature, 

164 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

here and there and in one or another degree. The 
superb processes of self-analysis and introspection, 
inspired by pure motive and love for the child com- 
ing to her, must naturally bring that mother to a 
new state of consciousness. She has lighted her 
torch from the fires of Divine Knowledge; she has 
entered a new and a spiritual path, and you cannot 
hold her back. She has found the secret of new life. 
And while she is so receptive — as she is at such 
a time, when the mysterious processes of the Divine 
Law are shaping the life that is to be, when the over- 
shadowing soul of her child is even then seeking 
recognition — she finds herself another woman. She 
has become transfigured, transformed. And her 
child will not be fettered with her weaknesses, nor 
even with its own, for mother has planted in its very 
being the secret of self-control. She has planted in 
the little mind, even before it has felt the sunshine, 
an insight and a power that will stay. Realizing her 
responsibility, and finding in a new way the power 
that is born of forbearance and of trust, she fashions 
for that little child a new house to live in, for she 
holds it in the atmosphere of the soul. 



If we are to keep our children unspoiled and with 
simple and wholesome tastes, we must cultivate in 

165 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

them great refinement, love of order and cleanliness, 
and the spirit of obedience. Avoid repressing the 
child. Teach it that obedience is a loving expression 
of its better nature — not something blindly imposed 
upon it by blind force. 



The Raj a- Yoga system endeavors to make clear 
to the young mind not merely the necessity but the 
meaning and beauty of rules and regulations, so that 
following them does not become a task but a pleasure. 



Certain hours of the day or evening should be 
kept regularly by parents in which to meet with 
their children socially, quite apart from other attrac- 
tions, entertainments or duties. Parents should en- 
deavor to create a spirit of true co-operation and 
mutual trust, that these hours may be times of 
mutual benefit. The real heart-nature of the child 
may thus be brought out at an early age. 



Not until parents understand the duality of man's 
nature and his power to control any tendency to sur- 
render to temptation, are they competent to estab- 
lish rules of conduct for their children. 

166 



Education and the Heart-life of the Child 

The secret of Raja- Yoga? It lies in the heart- 
life of the child. 



Every essential moral lesson which can be taught 
to adults can be taught also to children; and surely 
it is better that the little ones should learn, in the 
love and sanctity of the home, the lessons which the 
world has a rougher method of imparting at an age 
when mental habits have become confirmed. 



To teach the babes, the little children, their 
divine nature, to impress this fact upon them, is to 
lay the cornerstone of a healthy, happy manhood 
and womanhood. 

We must remember that early childhood oppor- 
tunities are precious; that the character is more 
susceptible to the influence of thoughts and actions 
than in mature life; that the child's growth and 
happiness depend upon its yesterdays — its baby- 
hood beginnings — and that the present must be used 
in rational and wise preparation for its tomorrows. 

167 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

You may organize systems of thought, or found 
societies and associations for the betterment of hu- 
manity; but these can do little permanent good be- 
cause there is lacking a universal system of educa- 
tion for the youth. 

Jt 

The world is tired, humanity is tired, of the 
merely intellectual life of the age. It is crying out 
for some clear manifestation of Truth, some glowing, 
compassionate expression of the heart-life — and this 
has come with the children. The children are the 
keys that will open the door of the Temple of 
the New Life. 

Theosophic education is not so much a something 
which is imparted. It is a liberation from the 
powers of the lower forces of the nature, which hin- 
der and check a growth which ought to be un- 
checked and spontaneous. 

We have been trained so long on lines of false 
education that our very blood is teeming with its 
poison. It is in the very atmosphere of our breathing 
life. It is all around us, and our brain-minds are so 

168 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 



permeated with the false teachings of the age that we 
imagine it difficult to take up our simple possibilities, 
grand as they are, and to feel that we actually can 
have the spiritual knowledge that shall reveal all 
things — all the secrets of life. 



Raj a- Yoga education is but a permission to the 
child to grow without the chains of self-love, which 
will ever remain outside of its nature if the founda- 
tions of education be laid aright. Are there not 
many parents who even admire in their children the 
faults which may, as adults, bring them within reach 
of the law — encouraging in them the self-will and 
the vanity which must surely mar their lives? 



The world has not yet realized how much of truth 
children already know, and how much of that truth 
we destroy by our mistakes. There are few children 
who do not know that Nature is a great teacher, until 
we, by our materialism, and often by our ridicule, 
drive the knowledge from their minds. 



Let the lives of the little ones be molded so that 
they will be better citizens than you or I. Let us 

169 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 



cultivate a higher spirit of patriotism, a deeper 
spirituality, a greater spirit of brotherly love. 



Under the Raj a- Yoga system children are taught 
to regard themselves as integral and responsible 
parts of the nation to which they belong. They are 
taught to aspire to the position of national bene- 
factors, teachers and helpers, and so to become ex- 
ponents of the truest and wisest patriotism. 



Our work is distinctively international and this 
has its effect upon the children. Students come here, 
both young and old, from all parts of the world, and 
each is encouraged to be, in the deeper sense, a 
national expression, standing for all that is best 
and highest in his own national life. 



In the nurseries and schools of the world the 
principle of selfishness seems often to be exalted into 
a virtue. 'Preparation for life' seems all too often 
to consist in the cultivation of those aspects of the 
nature which have already done so much to create 
the misery which we see. The habit of self-interest, 
the 'duty' of competition, are taught from the earliest 

170 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

and most impressionable days by many who would 
be the last to work consciously and wilfully to im- 
pede the child's real growth. And children so taught, 
being left in ignorance of their own nature, its com- 
plexities and its intricacies, are unable to discrimi- 
nate between the Higher Self and the lower, between 
the true and the false in life. 



At the Raj a- Yoga School the children are treated 
in accordance with the facts and the needs of life. 
The love which is given them is that truest affection 
which thinks ever of their welfare, without regard to 
the selfish pleasure which they can render in return- 
The affection which shows itself in the administra- 
tion of injurious dainties, by unwholesome fondling 
or injudicious petting, is not love but selfishness. 
To love a child truly is to help it to develop its 
highest faculties, which grow by, and through, a 
willing service to others. 

The world seeks for and requires a practical 
illustration of the possibility of developing a higher 
type of humanity, and an opportunity for that now 
presents itself. All who have the welfare of the 
world's children at heart can hasten the day of 
better things, eagerly sought for by so many. 

171 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

Valuable efforts are often hindered and the work 
which lies closest at hand may suffer neglect and 
be overcome in confusion by indulging in useless 
speculation. To accomplish the great purpose in 
view, unity and harmony are absolutely necessary. 
When these conditions are established, everything 
is possible. The co-operation of all who undertake 
the work of teaching children will bring about greater 
results than are now conceivable. 



Our so-called spiritual education is too often con- 
fined to a single hour on one day in the week — a 
single hour once in seven days! Yet how few, even 
among the best and wisest women, feel it an obliga- 
tion to separate themselves from other cares to train 
the Spiritual Will and direct the abounding energies 
of their children — so tied down are they by false 
standards of home-life. Yet when these children 
grow to manhood or womanhood we are horrified to 
see, if not in our immediate family then in the com- 
munity, the inebriate, the consumptive, the suicide, 
the criminal, the spiritual failure. 

This is not a pleasant picture, but we should not 
shrink from it if we can learn a useful lesson and 
through the knowledge thus gained help the coming 
generations. I say this in no spirit of censure, be- 

172 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 



lieve me, for these mistakes are due in the main to 
the ignorance of the age, to false ideals in education, 
and to the lower psychology upon which we have 
been feeding the mind of man for centuries. 



I realized many years ago that something was 
vitally wrong with all our scheme of things — with 
our conventions, our reformatory efforts, our chari- 
ties. In the very shadow of the churches I saw vice 
and suffering and want. Worse still, everywhere 
I saw people moving along the even tenor of their 
ways, blissfully oblivious or frankly indifferent. 

Never could I reconcile myself to such a bland 
acceptance of things. I must at least try to amelio- 
rate conditions. ... I saw hardship as the result 
of vice, and vice as the outcome of hardship. I 
realized that all of our systems of helpfulness were 
totally backhanded. We dealt then, as most people 
deal now, with effects rather than with causes. 
After the damage is done, we attempt to repair. 

What I wanted to do was to prevent — to prevent 
the damage being done. The world was already fair- 
ly well equipped with havens for the beaten and the 
fallen. I wanted to evolve an institution that would 
take humanity in hand before it was worsted in 
the struggle of life. 

173 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

The term education has a much wider signifi- 
cance at Point Loma than is usually given it. The 
basis of this education is the essential Divinity of 
man, and the necessity for transmuting everything 
in his nature which is not divine. 

To do this no part can be neglected, and the 
physical nature must share to the full in the care 
and attention which are required. Neither can the 
most assiduous training of the intellect be passed 
over; it must be made subservient, however, to the 
forces of the heart. The intellect must be the ser- 
vant, not the master, if order and equilibrium are 
to be attained. 



The truest and grandest thing of all as regards 
education is to attract the mind of the child to the 
fact that the Immortal Self is ever seeking to bring 
the whole being into a state of perfection. The real 
secret of the Raj a- Yoga system is rather to evolve 
the child's character than to overtax the child's 
mind; it is to bring out rather than to bring to the 
faculties of the child. The grander part is from within. 



Raj a- Yoga is an ancient term, meaning simply 
* royal ' or ' kingly union.' I selected it as best expres- 

174 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 



sing the aim and object of true education, namely, 
the perfect balance of all the faculties, physical, 
mental and spiritual — in a word, Character. 



Seeing that the children of today will be the men 
and women of the future, the great importance of this 
work surely cannot be over-estimated. Only by wise 
teaching, by training in self-reliance, self-discipline, 
concentration, and a recognition of the power of 
silence, can the lower qualities of the nature be over- 
come and the higher developed, so that the children 
who are brought in touch with this Movement shall 
in their turn become practical workers for humanity. 
One of the great objects must be to bring home to 
their minds the old, old teaching that they are Im- 
mortal Souls, not divorced from beneficent nature, 
but in deed and truth a part of it. 



Music is the Song of the Soul 

Music is one of the cornerstones of the Raj a- Yoga 
system of education. The world has not yet awak- 
ened to its value as a factor in refining and purifying 
the character, especially during the early and more 
plastic years of life. 

175 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

Man is essentially a creator, and he can be con- 
sidered in no other way. Theosophy, therefore, as 
the science of the immortal man, is creative on the 
highest lines. It brings the soul into action, en- 
nobles the nature, frees the mind and inspires. So 
that naturally it finds expression, directly and in- 
directly, in both art and music. 



There is an immense correspondence between 
music on the one hand, and thought and aspiration 
on the other, and only that deserves the name of 
music to which the noblest and purest aspirations 
are responsive. 

The Theosophist, who really desires to understand 
the soul of things, is ever careful in the selection of 
music, ever heedful as to what notes are sounded in 
the hearts of men, lest some great harm be done 
instead of good. 



There is a science of consciousness, and into that 
science music can enter more largely than is usually 

176 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 



supposed. A knowledge of the laws of life can be 
neither profound nor wide which thus neglects one 
of the most effective of all forces. 



Let us bring our children, therefore, close to the 
refining influences of the best in art and music. In 
doing so, however, let us realize that the power of 
beautiful expression in these things is not an affair 
of the intellect alone, nor of custom nor convention. 
Nor can it be learned from books. It comes from the 
awakening of the inner powers of the soul, those 
qualities of the nature which are in sympathy with 
whatever is high and pure. 

In the days to come, music will be a department 
of the Government. 

Music is the song of the soul, and well we know 
that it has not yet fulfilled its function. Had I the 
millions that are yearly given out in charity, my first 
work after I had fed the hungry and clothed the 
naked, would be to give such help to the families of 
the poor as would lead to the establishment of a 

177 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

musical life in even the humblest household. For 
when the soul is stirred by music, when we feel our- 
selves within reach of the higher ideals of life, then 
we find the Light. Do you not know how deeply we 
can be moved even by the old church-hymns, in 
spite of the old-fashioned theology that pervades 
them? 

Ji 

The world has a wrong conception of the ideal 
in music, and not until it has rectified this can it 
perceive that true harmony can never proceed from 
one who has not that harmony within himself. 



Music is a part of the daily life under the Raja- 
Yoga system of education, not merely as an exercise 
which occupies its stated times and seasons, but as a 
principle which animates all the activities. The soul- 
power which is called forth by a harmony well 
delivered and well received does not die away with 
the conclusion of the piece. It has elicited a response 
from within the nature, the whole being has been 
keyed to a higher pitch of activity, and even the 
smallest of the daily duties, those which are usually 
called menial, will be performed in a different way. 

178 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

As is the case with music, art under the Raja- 
Yoga system is a principle which pervades all life and 
activity, following faithfully upon the lines of the 
Science of the Soul which it is our mission to revive. 
Under this science it becomes the true expression of 
soul-ideals, and both art and decoration are no longer 
adventitious or capricious additions to our environ- 
ment, but integral parts of that to which they belong. 
They become in themselves the expression of the 
law of evolution, and the demonstration of the 
reality of that law. 



Music! What wonderful power lies in it to swing 
us out into the universal life! To realize its power is 
to realize that when self is forgotten, when personali- 
ties disappear, we are free — out in the open air of 
thought and love and the higher purposes. And yet 
even the best that we have today is but a material- 
istic expression in comparison with what it will be. 
Everything in music is so imperfect as yet: we are 
but touching the fringe of the real harmony. 



If we could hold ourselves in the attitude of mind 
that is created when true music touches us; if we 
could bind and fasten ourselves to the larger views 

179 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

it opens out and broaden our comprehension of what 
life really means, we could tear down the veil that 
divides the seen from the unseen, the seeming from 
the real; we could look at life as it really is, at our- 
selves as we really are. 



I have always believed that music should be a 
power among the masses; that the god of music 
should rule every household, and that the little 
children, indeed the whole family, should give as 
much attention to music as to the other duties in life. 
If that were only the case, what a beautiful world 
this would be! Were we only taught the simple, 
fundamental laws of music, we could throw ourselves 
upon our soul-resources when under the shadow of 
the sorrows and trials of life, and sing ourselves 
once more into harmony and usefulness, into the 
light and joy of life. 



True Drama, the Soul's Interpreter 

The drama, like music, is regarded by the world 
as one of the relaxations of life because it is supposed 
to deal with unrealities. True drama points away 
from unrealities to the real life of the soul. As such 

180 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

the drama should lead and guide the public taste, 
providing it with ideals towards which it can aspire. 
It is made to enter largely into the instruction of the 
children under the Raj a- Yoga system, and nowhere 
are the advantages of this system more strikingly 
illustrated than in the dramatic power which can be 
called forth wherever there is an absence of self- 
consciousness and of vanity. 



Nowhere in the social life of today is the need 
for reform more manifest than in the drama. In too 
many directions it has been made to serve the 
sensationalism of the day and to stimulate the vicious 
thought which it might be so powerful to suppress. 



We are within sight of the day which will restore 
the drama to its rightful position as one of the 
great redemptive forces of the age. 



Dramatic study is one of the most important 
factors in the right education of the child, for true 
drama is the soul's interpreter. 

181 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 



Under the Raj a- Yoga system the drama becomes 
the great creative exponent of the spiritual life. 



It is the heart that the drama reaches with its 
message. That is the secret of its power to re- 
generate. 

Life so needs beauty and laughter! My aim in 
presenting this drama {As You Like It) is in part to 
bring these back. I would have you mirthful with 
me in the 'golden world' pictured by Shakespeare in 
this play. Wholesome mirth is creative in itself. 



Shakespeare brought back to us the spirit of 
ancient beauty. He was a true Theosophist. 



Man cannot be preached into virtue nor forced 
into happiness. He must be led to love them 
through the heart-touch. Your higher drama is 
your real reformer. 

Point Loma is a center from which streams of 
brotherly love radiate out into the world. The 

182 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

educational institution founded there has no other 
reason for its existence than to benefit humanity at 
large, to show that the life which is inspired by hope 
is necessarily the life which is rich in achievement, 
and that man does indeed possess to the fullest ex- 
tent a dominion over Nature, vast and unimaginable. 



The value of the educational institution at Point 
Loma lies in the fact that it has proved the truth of 
its theories by its success. It has accomplished the 
mission which brought it into being. It has rescued 
Theosophy from the domain of an intellectualism 
which might easily have become more selfish, because 
more subtle, than the current thought of the world. 
It has demonstrated that the Theosophic life is the 
life of practical common sense, and that in the light 
of its philosophy the shadows pass away and man 
can enter into his birthright of joy. 



To ask, 'Will the Raj a- Yoga system change 
present conditions?' is but to elicit the assurance 
that it has already changed them. The inertia of 
custom and convention has been already broken, 
and the unrest of the world, at which so many look 
with distrust and apprehension, is but the movement 

183 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

of the ship with the incoming tide of a purer and 
better thought. Ideals have been thrown out into 
the world, and because they are spiritual ideals they 
have entered into the minds of men and have painted 
entrancing pictures of what the world would be if 
man were but master of himself and of it. Those 
ideals will not die away until they have been realized, 
until they have given birth to other ideals which will 
illuminate for ever the roadway of all future life, 
declaring the reality of a reign of peace on earth 
and of the god in man. 



'The Little Philosophers' 

{The following excerpt — from a symposium written 
by Katherine T ingle y for the tiny tots of the Raja-Yoga 
School and entitled ' The Little Philosophers ' — gives 
a glimpse of Raja-Yoga ideals in education.) 

" Call them up ! Call them up ! Prepare the way ! 
Lift the stumbling-blocks from out the way of 
the people!" . . . 

Let us call, comrades, on our hearts, ourselves, 
Let us arouse the good, meet face to face 
The evil in our natures. 
That is the teaching of Theosophy — 

184 



THE PATH OF THE MYSTIC 

To kill out fear and in its place plant love; 
To be compassionate and pure and true, 
Giving the strength to lift from out the way 
These stumbling-blocks. 

Have not the world's Great Teachers ever 

taught 
Christ's very message? Confucius said, 
" Conquer by love, not hatred"; and the Greeks 
Knew that they were divine. Hermes declared 
" There is but one eternal law, and that 
Doth work towards justice." 
Let your words be true and pure. 
The ancient Persian, even the Zuni prayer: 
"Father, let us not stumble in the path!" 

Let us be more than just philosophers. 
These stumbling-blocks, quick, let us clear 
away! . . . 

Let us be Builders of the nation's future, 
Let us as Warriors stand! Let our light shine, 
To glorify the living word of Christ, 
To help humanity, to make Theosophy 
A living power in all lives! 



185 



There is no Religion Higher than Truth 

W$t ®ntoersial protfjerfjoob anb 
l^eostopfncal £s>octetp 

Established for the benefit of the people of the earth and all creatures 

OBJECTS 

This BROTHERHOOD is part of a great and universal 
movement which has been active in all ages. 

This Organization declares that Brotherhood is a fact in 
Nature. Its principal purpose is to teach Brotherhood, demon- 
strate that it is a fact in Nature and make it a living power in 
the life of humanity. 

Its subsidiary purpose is to study ancient and modern re- 
ligions, science, philosophy and art; to investigate the laws 
of Nature and the divine powers in man. 



The Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society, 
founded by H. P. Blavatsky at New York, 1875, continued after 
her death under the leadership of the co-founder, William Q. 
Judge, and now under the leadership of their successor, Katherine 
Tingley, has its Headquarters at the International Theosophical 
Center, Point Loma, California. 

This Organization is not in any way connected with nor does 
it endorse any other societies using the name of Theosophy. 



The Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society 
welcomes to membership all who truly love their fellow men 
and desire the eradication of the evils caused by the barriers 
of race, creed, caste or color, which have so long impeded human 
progress; to all sincere lovers of truth and to all who aspire 
to higher and better things than the mere pleasures and inter- 
ests of a worldly life, and are prepared to do all in their power 
to make Brotherhood a living energy in the life of humanity, 
its various departments offer unlimited opportunities. 

The whole work of the Organization is under the direction 
of the Leader and Official Head, Katherine Tingley, as out- 
lined in the Constitution. 



Do not fail to profit by the following: 

It is a regrettable fact that many people use the name of 
Theosophy and of our Organization for self-interest, as also 
that of H. P. Blavatsky, the Foundress, to attract attention to 
themselves and to gain public support. This they do in private 
and public speech and in publications, also by lecturing through- 
out the country. Without being in any way connected with the 
Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society, in many 
cases they permit it to be inferred that they are, thus misleading 
the public, and many honest inquirers are hence led away from 
the truths of Theosophy as presented by H. P. Blavatsky and 
her successors, William Q. Judge and Katherine Tingley, and 
practically exemplified in their Theosophical work for the up- 
lifting of humanity. 

For further information address 

The Secretary 

International Theosophical Headquarters 

Point Loma, California 



The International Brotherhood League 

Founded in 1897 by Katherine Tingley 

ITS OBJECTS ARE: 

1. To help men and women to realize the nobility of their 
calling and their true position in life. 

2. To educate children of all nations on the broadest lines 
of Universal Brotherhood, and to prepare destitute and homeless 
children to become workers for humanity. 

3. To ameliorate the condition of unfortunate women, and 
assist them to a higher life. 

4. To assist those who are, or have been, in prisons to 
establish themselves in honorable positions in life. 

5. To abolish capital punishment. 

6. To bring about a better understanding between so-called 
savage and civilized races, by promoting a closer and more sym- 
pathetic relationship between them. 

7. To relieve human suffering resulting from flood, famine, 
war, and other calamities; and, generally, to extend aid, help, 
and comfort to suffering humanity throughout the world. 

For further information regarding the above Notices, address 

KATHERINE TINGLEY 

International Theosophical Headquarters 
Point Loma, California 



Standard Theosophical Literature 

FOREIGN AGENCIES 

GREAT BRITAIN — Theosophical Book Co., 

18 Bartlett's Buildings, Holborn 
Circus, London, e. c. 4, England 

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Baarn 

GERMANY— J. Th. Heller, Vestnertorgraben 13, 
Nurnberg 

AUSTRALIA — Box 1292 G. P. O., Sydney, N. S. W. 



The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of Science, 
Religion, and Philosophy: by H. P. Blavatsky. 
Second Point Loma Edition, 1917: Virtually a 
verbatim reprint of the original edition published 
in 1888 by H. P. Blavatsky (per set: 4 vols.) $12.00 

Isis Unveiled: A Master-Key to the Mysteries of 
Ancient and Modern Science and Theology, 
by H. P. Blavatsky (per set: 4 vols.) 12.00 

The Key to Theosophy: A Clear Exposition, in 
the Form of Question and Answer, of the Ethics, 
Science, and Philosophy, for the Study of which 
The Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical 
Society has been founded, with a copious Glossary 
of General Theosophical Terms, 
by H. P. Blavatsky (per copy) 2.25 



Bhagavad-Gita: The Book of Devotion. A Dialog 
between Krishna, Lord of Devotion, and Arjiina, 
Prince of India. An Episode from the Mahd- 
bharata, India's Great Epic. Recension 
by W. Q. Judge 1.00 

The Voice of the Silence, and other fragments 
from the Book of the Golden Precepts. Dedicated to 

the Few. Translated and Annotated 

by H. P. Blavatsky .75 

Echoes from the Orient: A Broad Outline cloth .50 
of Theosophical Doctrines, by W. Q. Judge paper . 25 

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, by Katherine 
Tingley: with Quotations from the writings of 
H. P. Blavatsky; Tributes by W. Q. Judge cloth .90 
and Students paper . 75 

A Nosegay of Everlastings: from Katherine 
Tingley 's Garden of Helpful Thoughts. Short ex- 
tracts culled from various addresses delivered cloth . 75 
in Europe and America paper .50 

Katherine Tingley on Marriage and the 
Home, by Claire Merton . 25 

The Fates of the Princes of Dyfed: Stories of 
Welsh Gods and Heroes. A Romance, 
by Cenydd Moms 2.00 

The Plough and the Cross: A Story of New 

Ireland, by William Patrick O'Ryan 1 . 00 

Lomaland. An Album of Views of the Interna- 
tional Headquarters at Point Loma, and Quota- 
tions from the three Theosophical Leaders 

(10x13 in. postage 6c. extra) .50 



Incidents in the History of the Theosophical 
Movement, by J. H. Fussell .25 

THEOSOPHICAL PAMPHLETS 

Per copy, each, 15c. 

An Epitome of Theosophy, by William Quan Judge 

The Mystical Christ, by Katherine Tingley 

Katherine Tingley and her Raja- Yoga System of 
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Katherine Tingley: Theosophist and Humanitarian, 
by Lilian Whiting 

Some of the Errors of Christian Science, 
by H. P. Blavatsky and W. Q. Judge 

The Evils of Hypnotism, by Lydia Ross, m. d. 

THEOSOPHICAL MANUALS 

Handbooks for Students 

Price each, paper .25; cloth .35. 
Per set (19 vols.), paper $4.00; cloth $5.50 

No. 1. Elementary Theosophy 

No. 2. The Seven Principles of Man 

No. 3. Karma 

No. 4. Reincarnation 

No. 5. Man after Death 

No. 6. Kama-loka and Devachan 

No. 7. Teachers and Their Disciples 

No. 8. The Doctrine of Cycles 



No. 9. Psychism, Ghostology, and the Astral Plane 

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NEW CENTURY SERIES 

The Pith and Marrow of Some Sacred Writings 

Each 25c. 

Script 1 — Contents: The Relation of Universal Brother- 
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— In this Place is a Greater Thing 

Script 2 — Contents: A Vision of Judgment — The Great 
Victory — Co-Heirs with Christ — The ' Woes ' of the 
Prophets — Fragment: from Bhagavad-Gita — Jesus the 
Man 

Script 3 — Contents: Lesson of Israel's History — Man's 
Divinity and Perfectibility — The Man Born Blind 

— The Everlasting Covenant — Burden of the Lord 

Script 4 — Contents: Reincarnation in the Bible — The 
Money-Changers in the Temple — The Mysteries of the 
Kingdom of Heaven — The Heart Doctrine — The Tem- 
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Script 5 — Contents: Egypt and Prehistoric America 

— Theoretical and Practical Theosophy — Death, One of 
the Crowning Victories of Human Life — Reliance on the 
Law — Led by the Spirit of God 

Script 9 — Contents: Traces of the Wisdom- Religion in 
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THE PATH SERIES 

Specially adapted for Inquirers in Theosophy 

per copy, 5c. 

No. 1. The Purpose of the Universal Brotherhood and 

Theosophical Society 
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Reprinted from Official Report, World's Parliament 
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(H. T. Edge, m. a.) 
No. 6. What is Theosophy? (H. T. Edge, M. A.) 

LOTUS LIBRARY FOR YOUNG FOLK 

Introduced under the direction of Katherine Tingley 

Coming of the King, The: by R. Machell cloth .35 
Little Builders, and their Voyage to Rangi, The: 

by R.N. .50 



Lotus Song: " The Sun Temple," with music . 15 

Lotus Song Book. Fifty original songs with 

coyprighted music boards .50 

Luz Star-Eye's Dream-Journey to the Isles 

of the Southern Sea. A Story for Children 

by Ylva. Illustrations by the Author cloth . 75 

Strange Little Girl, The A Story for Children, 

by V. M. Illustrations by N. Roth cloth . 75 

PERIODICALS 

THE THEOSOPHICAL PATH (illustrated, monthly) 
Edited by Katherine Tingley 
per copy, domestic .30, foreign .35 or Is 6d. 
per year $3.00: Canadian postage, .35; Foreign .50 

RAJA-YOGA MESSENGER (illustrated, bi-monthly) 
Conducted by students of the Raj a- Yoga College, under 
the direction of Katherine Tingley. 

per copy, domestic . 30, foreign . 25 or Is. 
per year $1.00: Canadian postage, .10; Foreign .20 

THE NEW WAY (illustrated, monthly) Under the direc- 
tion of Katherine Tingley 

per copy .10: per year .75; Foreign $1.00 

PAPERS OF THE SCHOOL OF ANTIQUITY 

per copy, 20c. 

No. 1. The Spirit of the Hour in Archaeology: by William 
E. Gates, Professor of American Archaeology and Lin- 
guistics, School of Antiquity 

No. 2. The Relation of Religion to Art in Antiquity and 
the Middle Ages: by Osvald Siren, Professor of the History 
of Art, University of Stockholm 



No. 3. Notes on Peruvian Antiquities {illustrated): by 

Fred. J. Dick, M. Inst. C. E., Professor of Astronomy and 

Mathematics, School of Antiquity 
No. 6. Medical Psychology: by Lydia Ross, M. D. 
No. 7. Ancient Astronomy in Egypt and its Significance 

(illustrated): by Fred. J. Dick 
No. 8. Studies in Evolution: by H. T. Edge, M. A. 

Natural Sciences Tripos, Cambridge University, England; 

Professor of Education in the School of Antiquity 
No. 9. The School of Antiquity: Its Meaning, Purpose, 

and Scope: by J. H. Fussell, Secretary, Universal Brother- 
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No. 10. Problems in Ethnology: by J. 0. Kinnaman, A.M., 

Ph. D., Member of The Victoria Institute of Great Britain. 

Notes by J. H. Fussell 
No. 11. Neglected Fundamentals in Geometry: by Fred. 

J. Dick 
No. 12. Maya Chronology (illustrated): by Fred. J. Dick 
No. 13. Prehistoric Man and Darwinism: by Charles J. 

Ryan, Department of Archaeological Research, School of 

Antiquity 

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